The local nourishment

A number of people have asked about this and so I figured it was time to discuss both the traditional foods of Gabon as well as the foods that I eat here. Obviously, the two do not overlap perfectly.

Gabon is an equitorial country and as such it is relatively warm here all year long. Also there are a uniform number of hours of sunlight every day. This makes for a strange and poor growing season. Two things grow naturally here. Bananas of a great sort and variety and manioc, which is a tuber similar to a potato. Bananas are eaten raw, but more often cooked like french fries, deep-fried in oil. Delicious and treacherous to the waistline. Manioc can be eaten both as the root itself, in which case you boil it, or you can eat the leaves, which look like spinach, sauteed. On its own manioc smells and tastes like vegetal sweaty gym socks. The leaves are very tasty though. I thought of them as a richer version of sauteed spinach. As far as other things that are grown here—and there aren't many things, Gabon imports almost all of its nourishment—there are mangoes, grapefruits, passion fruits, peanuts, and taro. Basically tropical fruits. Some places are also trying to get cocoa and coffee plantations underway.

As far as what I eat, this is deeply influenced by living at a hospital encampment controlled by a French administration. In short, I eat a nouveau Franco-gabonese style cuisine at the refectectoire, or cafeteria on campus. We have coffee and baguette for breakfast every morning. Always. That is the only thing I have eaten for breakfast here. I may die a carbohydrate induced death. For lunch and dinner, it is always a salad, a main dish, a side vegetable dish, and a desert. The salad is often shredded cabbage, cut tomatoes, or some lettuce. Then we have a meat entree, or grilled fish (which I prefer for obvious vegetarian reasons). The grilled fish is delicious and caught locally (in the Ogooue River). Some people eat the whole thing, head and all, but I have not worked up to that point yet. The side vegetable is usually aubergine, corn, or leek, usually swimming in a sea of delicious palm oil. Desert can either be fruit, or occasionally a small piece of cake or pie. In sum, we eat well. Like when I lived in India, I may very well gain weight in Gabon. At the supermarket, they also have a tremendous array of little cakes and biscuits as well as two fine local beers, Castel and Regab. In sum, Gabon is not my ideal gustatory zone but I am holding up pretty well all things considered.