food and culture

Does it taste good?, the lama meat.

There is a lot to say about the eating of meat in different cultures. For example, since two years I live in the Matonge-neighbourhood. In our street it smells always like chèvre grillé (grilled goat). Every two weeks we have a take away dinner of the greasy grilled goat, accompanied by chikwangue. and a hot chilli tapenade. We eat it in aluminum foil, with our hands, and it's just so delicious!

a small anecdote :
"in Congolese winkels liggen overal van die pakjes te koop. ‘Iets’, stevig gewikkeld in tropische bladeren en dan dichtgeknoopt met een koordje. Ze liggen tussen de voedingswaren, dus zullen ze wel eetbaar zijn, maar wat zou erin zitten?
Ik heb rond die pakjes heen lopen draaien en trok op een dag mijn stoute jungleboots aan. Ik zou en moest ze proeven. “C’est du chikwangue, iets gemaakt van maniok,” klonk het in de winkel. Drie pakjes kostten 2,50 euro, ze bleken naderhand elk ongeveer 250 gram te wegen. Een aardige Afrikaanse dame, die mee aan de kassa aanschoof, merkte op dat chikwangue de verkeerde naam was. “Chikwangue is een Frans woord uit Kin,” vertrouwde ze mij toe. “In het Lingala heet dit gewoon kwanga.” Waar de chi er is ingeslopen, wist ze niet zeker. Waarschijnlijk heeft ooit een marktvrouw, aan wie een koloniaal vroeg hoe die dingen heetten, uitgeroepen: “Ça? C’est kwanga!” Dat werd dan vervormd tot cikwanga en verfranst tot chiquangue/chikwangue. Op een vergelijkbare manier heet een rund in Fiji bulumakau. Het eerste koppel runderen dat op de eilanden aankwam, oogstte er heel wat bekijks. De Fijiërs wilden weten hoe die beesten heetten. De kolonist antwoordde: “A bull and a cow.” Vandaar. "

Last year I invited a friend from Hanoi (Vietnam) and he stayed for several months in my studentshouse in Antwerp. We did our grocery shopping in the GB supermarket. One evening I saw him cooking some meat. He said to me that it was not good. We both tried the soup he made. I took a look at the packaging and it said: 'Vlees voor huisdieren'. So I said to him, 'you made a mistake this is dog meat.' His reply: ' It is no dog meat, that tastes completely different'. And then I realised...

I never tried lama meat before. But since I adore goat, I'm willing to try!

Hope to hear from you soon Arnon!

Monica,

i'm your fan! Leave aside the fact that i'm a vegetarian, i just like the fact that i'm smiling each time after i read your comments. It is so unusual to meet someone who's so alive.

Neria

Thanks for your compliment! Very kind of you.

I really like animals to, so I support your vegeterianism.

Ah, meeting Old Nick again in those mines.

correction

The last thing I said came out the wrong way.
I like animals not for eating of course! In fact, I'm writing this comment with a tree month- cat named 'tulipe' sleeping on my lap.
I found her two days before christmas in my street 'rue de la tulipe' in Brussels. The small creature was wandering around on the street and almost god hit by a car. I took it in my arms and it never left since. Next day me and my partner bought a litter box and food for young cats. After this time we realy started loving Tulipe. She likes to creep between us in bed. She sleeps in my arms when I'm reding a book... etc. Today we did our laundry, and while waiting for it to be done, we druk a coffee near the laundryshop. I was looking out of the window in the café, and I saw a poster: 'petite chat marron perdue'. ( small brown female cat, missing), I emediatlly new it was Tulipe., and I felt that my eyes were getting wet. Now I'm enjoying the last day of her company , and tomorrow I'm calling the owners, to take her back. The poster didn't metion a reward, but If they want to give something, I will spend the money to adopt an asalyum cat. (in Belgium it costs 15 euro's).

Monica,

Go for it Monica, cats are wonderful! :)

To Arnon

George Steiner has just published a book that contains seven essays that threat unwritten novels of him.
As of yet I am not familiar with Steiner's work , but whilst reading a review on Steiner's latest work, your's came to my mind.

I thought it wouldn't cause any harm to confront you with the concerning quote:

"The greatest "book" loss, however, is "The Tongues of Eros," which introduces a Steiner unleashed from the primness of his usual literary venues.""
Later on Steiner is quoted, explaining why he never wrote it: "indiscretion "must have its limits.""

You can find the complete review below:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertainment/books/20071230_An_epilogue_to_empty_pages.html

Arnon, is it indiscrete to bring up your forthcoming novel?

Llama

17 years ago, two years before I met and -later- married my wife, I had a friend who sold horses. We put some money together and set up what later became a booming business. We sold European horses to Americans, who were (are?) fond of anything European.
We practically sold any horse that came our way and one time, part of the payment consisted of a (male) llama.
We treated it well, but the question "What does one do with a llama", still lingers...
Being part of a payment, we estimated its value around 600 Dutch guilders then.
The value was based on hearsay.
I think you can appreciate our enormous joy when "it" (the llama) actually fetched 3700 Dutch guilders at an anmimal auction. Why so much ? Well it was all about a mistake. We declared the llama a boy, whereas the vet assured us it was a girl an very capable of producing off-spring.
Hence the party for me, my friend and two great looing girls from theYY club at the Okura...
Yes I remember it well...

Monica

Are you Amélie Poulain? The last time I went to Matongé there was a very menacing atmosphere and a big black guy yelled to us: "Ca va finir, mal." My friends appreciated the poetic value of this sentence.

Potosi, a true dark land

As far as I recall the mountain of sliver Potosi claimed approx. 6 million lives. The Native Indians, in those days, were nothing but slaves: they were the workaholics for all us, silverolics. Dropped dead like flies, that is what they did. shame on evryone of us, the truly white trash of the world. spanish, English, Portugese and Dutch, o yeah, the Dutch...

Our race is a disgrace, then, now and ,well, Mark Twain already new it, tomorrow too. Sorry for this black scenario but hell, it is what it is, not what we dream it to be.

Dear Lila l.

Maybe the guy was Congolese, and then I can't agree more with what he said.

Connection is lost?

Pjötr

The answer is yes.

Monica

Be aware of cats.
Llama meat, especially dried llama meat called charque, I believe, can be delicious.
But of course there is a case to be made for vegetarianism.

Talking about vegetarism, there is no reason to be concerned about my own vegetarism when seated at the fondu-table, I presume?

Dens

There is. First of all milk and milk products involve more cruelty than just slaughtering. You take a normal cow which naturaly lactate up to10 litters a day only netween 2-3 months after giving birth, and rob her painfully of 50 litters a day, day in day out, for years. As a refsult you impoverish her calcium and other resources so extensiveiy you actually torture her to death in a process which takes approx two years. If you don't consider yourself either Romus or Remulus, and if you don't picture yourself falling on your knees and stuffing an animals' udder in your mouth, then you probably don't need to consume dairy.
By the way, to produce hard cheese, stremsels (enzimes which are found in the animal's stomach) are added to the milk. This stage in the process deprive the cheese from its vegetarian aura.

Dens

Plus, cattle farts and endanger life on Earth more than anything else. Reduce the consumption of meat and dairy and you will have less of them going around feeding themeselves with vegetation that grows on the same land were you could grow less plants which provide safer and cheaper protein to everyone.

Correction: remove 'less' in the last sentence. And forgive me for the wrong prepositions...

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