A Carb Cuisine

In southern Togo the cuisine staple is pate (sounds like the French word for pasta).  Pate is corn flour prepared with boiling water to make a thick paste.  Bits of this paste are then taken in the hand and dipped into a small amount of sauce.  Without sauce pate can be rather bland but many Togolese seem to love pate.  My sister Mary even said that if she didn’t eat pate she’d die.  She was referring to how filling pate is. 

It is true that pate provides a decent amount of energy as carbohydrates are oft to do, but these carbohydrate meals provide little else.  Roughly 90% of the diet is Togo is carbohydrates.  If pate is not eaten at a meal it’s replaced with another carb, whether it be pasta (called “spaghetti” or “maca”-roni here sine the French word for pasta is the same as pate), rice, bread, or yams (pounded into a stick paste call fou fou).

Another passion for food is oil.  Much of what is eaten here is fried.  Before every dinner I get from my host mother an appetizer of fried yams, plantains, sweet potato, or other root (Taro etc.).  On the street women sell fried dough, fried bananas, fried tofu, and other fried pastries.   

In addition to frying foods oil is used heavily in many of the sauces.  The base of many of the sauces is vegetable oil or even healthier, with much saturated fat, palm oil.  It is rare to eat vegetables and proteins and the sauces tend to be limited to tomatoes, onions, and okra. Thankfully the Peace Corps has explained that we Americans need more veggies and protein than that to be healthy.  In spite of this 85% of my diet is empty carbs.  I have been so lucky as to have a carb trifecta for a meal with fried yams, bread, and pasta, don’t forget the oil poured on top...

My mother also feeds me an incredible amount.  There may be a stereotype that Jewish mothers provide an endless supply of tasty food to her children and guests, but you haven’t met a Togolese woman yet.  You are expected to have third and fourth helpings of everything.  I am given fried treats before each meal and as snacks throughout the day.  I am given a giant bowl of pasta or pate and I’m expected to eat it all and they tease me if I don’t finish.

A lack of food security is something often associated with African nations and malnourished stick-thin children.  But it is often not a lack of food that is the main problem but a lack of quality foods.  Eating carbohydrates and fats alone provides energy but doesn’t provide the nutrients needed to build a strong body or immune system.  Like my sister said, people are under the impression that pate and other carbs are the key to health and productivity in the fields.  But it’s not providing a higher quantity of food, but providing higher quality of food that is important.  Providing high quality foods and educating people about the importance of a diverse diet that also incorporates fruits, vegetables, and proteins is the key to health not just a larger quantity of food.