Food thoughts II: lijo li monate!

Due to the United States Embassy’s continual and, in my view, unreasonable refusals to let me use the diplomatic pouch for ordering pizza, I have been forced to learn how to make my own food while living here.

One of the first things I learned how to make was bread. Now, one day during training my friend and fellow member of the Kose family, Tumisang, told our family that I bought bread. This was of course a character assassination of the basest sort and could not be abided. I don’t think I have to tell you that a man who can make bread with his own two hands but instead chooses to buy it cannot really be considered a man at all. I make the bread with a pretty simple recipe (wheat flour, salt, sugar, yeast, water, margarine) and cook it in a Dutch oven made from a large pot and a small tuna can.

Letlotlo means "glory," which is something men
who buy bread will never achieve.

One of the staple foods of the Basotho is papa, which is a mixture of maize meal and water. This food is important enough to merit its own vocabulary: instead of the standard verb ho fuluha for “to stir,” you must use ho soka, which means specifically “to stir papa.” I am not very good at making it, but am improving. One of our days off from school, ‘M’e Makoae, the 4^th grade teacher, invited me to come to her field to collect pone (maize [corn]). We spent the morning gathering, and when we came back to her house, we ate lunch with her family. I told her that her papa was far better than mine. We talked a little shop about how to make the best papa, and in the course of our conversation I revealed that I was stirring my papa with a spoon like some kind of ignoramus. In fact, you are supposed to stir your papa with a lesokoana, a wooden stick. A few days later, she gave me a lesokoana of my very own and that, combined with letting the mixture simmer much longer than I had been( 20 or so minutes, until it is about the consistency of mashed potatoes), has yielded some great results.

A near empty bag of maize meal under my new lesokoana.

Because this is my first time cooking for myself (excepting the few months I spent in New Zealand during which I ate only cereal and fried rice), I have been going through a prolonged trial and error approach to figuring out things that I like and am capable of cooking. After several weeks of what might generously be termed “soups” made of a chicken stock cube and any available vegetables, I have finally nailed down a few delicious items. Here are some of my greatest victories.

Look at this pizza.

A pulled pork sandwich made from the successor pig to
the one referenced in my "Some pig" post.

My 4th of July veggie burger on freshly-baked bread.

One of the benefits of Lesotho's location is the number of food products available from South Africa. I can always get peanut butter and other important necessities. However, it is sometimes very apparent that these products are marketed to South Africans, and to one group of South Africans in particular.

Probably not what the typical Basotho aunt looks like.