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Latest blog posts from Field to Feast

Peas and Patience
On Saturday I made akara, a Ghanaian black-eyed pea fritter. Though this may seem like an unremarkable event, I was amazed for two reasons:1) Carolyn's cooking bylaw number 134 -- which states that the longer than expected a dish takes to prepare, the more likely it is to be a complete disaster...
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Published 2 weeks ago

A Dip, Blended and Bright Green
Is there a mundane life task that, for reasons known only to your subconscious, gives you immense satisfaction? For example, some people are pleased as punch when they can tick items off their to-do list. I know because I am one of them. I also get a strange pleasure from putting leftovers in...
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Published 2 months ago

A Field Trip to Cambodia
Serve me fresh fish, and I am a happy girl. Serve me fresh fish topped with crispy, stir-friend threads of ginger, squid sautéed with green peppercorns, banana flower salad, and coconut milk and lime smoothies, and, well, I might never leave your country.I did leave Cambodia, after one week of...
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Published 3 months ago

Muryohe Rwe! A Short Field Trip to Rwanda
Field to Feast has never wrote and posted in situ, but here goes - I am writing to you from the shores of Lake Kivu, in western Rwanda, a 10-minute drive from the border with the DRC. Lake Kivu has the unenviable privilege of being considered one of Africa’s “killer lakes” because of the...
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Published 4 months ago

Babula Cooking
A few months ago, my friend Ruth (yes, the Ruth of rooibos chocolate cake and buamba fame), handed me a small, square, well-worn booklet, stored in a protective Ziploc bag. “The cookbook I was telling you about �" the one compiled by missionaries where I grew up in central Zaire. I think you...
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Published 5 months ago

Back, with a Bean
I ended my last post with a wish that the flicker of hope I saw in the days after the 29 March election would reignite. I was wrong, however, to assume the flame had disappeared. It remained a smolder low to the ground, tended by brave people, despite the boots and sticks and metal rods trying to...
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Published 5 months ago

And on the Eighth Day…
We waited.A week ago today, the citizens of Zimbabwe went to the polls. They emerged proudly displaying their pinkie fingers, stained pink from the ink used to mark their votes. Excited whispers of change wafted on the air like errant plastic bags, shreds of new information were panned like gold,...
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Published 8 months ago

Make-a-Plan Millet
One expression you learn quickly in Zimbabwe �" right up there among “shame” (said, while shaking one’s head, instead of “too bad”) and “howzit?” (“how are things?”) �" is “make a plan.” Need to adapt to a new situation or create a Plan “D”? You are making a plan.But...
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Published 9 months ago

Samp and Beans, Enlivened with Lime
Corn has been getting a lot of publicity lately. But even before industrial agriculture dug its claws into this versatile cereal and invented high-fructose corn syrup, cultures around the world had devised myriad techniques for consuming every edible part of the plant. In Zimbabwe, you can buy...
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Published 9 months ago

Tiny Potatoes, Spicy Salad
The number of vendors has increased over the past few months in Harare �" shop-side vendors dangling plastic sleeves of tomatoes, potatoes, onions and okra from sticks like veggie mobiles; street-side vendors displaying their greens, mangoes, avocadoes and maputi (popped maize) on upturned...
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Published 10 months ago

Curried Kidney Beans, and the Mobile Food Chain
I didn’t study science in school and do not work in a scientific field �" maybe that’s why I so admire books that make science accessible to us commoners. Jared Diamond can work this magic, as can Natalie Angier. I am currently reading Feast: Why Humans Share Food by Martin Jones, a...
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Published 11 months ago

The Red and Green Gimmick
When my husband and I first moved into our furnished rental house in Harare, we discovered a heart-shaped plaque on the wall that featured two kissing mice and the slogan "mouse-to-mouse resuscitation." We took it down. Immediately. And hid it in the farthest corner of the closet. I am not a fan...
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Published 11 months ago