Atlantica - 01.05.2007, Page 29

28 a t l a n t i c a
on the fly
Ever tried to make steamed veggie
dumplings inside a volcano? Or how
about a chicken pot pie? Neither did
I, until arriving in Chã das Caldeiras,
a community at the base of the still-
active, 2,829-meter Pico do Fogo in
the West African island nation of Cape
Verde, where I currently volunteer at
the local agricultural co-op.
The dumplings and pot pie may
sound delicious (they are), but cooking
in Chã is not as easy as it sounds. This
small village (elevation 1,629 m) of 600
inhabitants is situated inside a volcanic
crater that last erupted in 1995. Homes
have neither electricity nor running
water. The only transport to the nearest
city, São Filipe, is a two-hour ride in
the back of a pick-up, usually in the
company of caged chickens or 50-kilo
bags of cement.
My kitchen in Chã is a simple affair.
There are two tables; a bowl full of
ripe tomatoes, green peppers, onions,
carrots, garlic cloves, and eggs; a bucket
of water; a shelf teeming with groceries;
and a gas stove, which has two settings:
hot and hottest. Though the stove is
great for cooking rice, anything
requiring low-heat – like making a good
white sauce – is difficult. (My mac and
cheese just hasn’t been the same.)
As a small, rural community, Chã
does not have the selection of imported
groceries found elsewhere on the island,
nor does it have irrigation, which makes
the availability of produce spotty. With
this in mind, I made the decision after
arriving that since the best foods aren’t
coming here, I must go – literally walk
– to find them myself.
My quest has taken me to just about
every loja (store) on the island in the
past eight months. They seem to carry
99 percent of the same stuff, but each
store has a unique one percent, be
it powdered sugar, soy sauce, extra
virgin olive oil, or saffron (a recent
acquisition). Every store has a certain
flavor; some have more items from
Portugal, France, or Holland, others
Brazil or the United States. My favorite
lojas are the American ones, where I can
occasionally score a comfort food like
real maple syrup or taco shells.
Getting to the stores for these
ingredients, however, often requires a
long walk. When walking on roads, I
sometimes can get a boléia, a hitch,
but mostly it’s one-foot-in-front-of-the-
other through the lava, forests, and
coffee plantations of the surrounding
countryside. Take spaghetti with pesto
sauce, for example, a favorite of mine.
Only in Mosteiros, a small city about 13
km walk from Chã, can you find good
Italian pasta. So, twice a month or so, I
scurry down the trail to buy pasta. Fresh
basil, however, is in the other direction,
through three massive lava fields, in a
small village called Estância Roque.
Fresh basil isn’t the only thing on
my mind during the 10 km, three-
hour walk from Chã to Estância Roque.
Awaiting me at the loja, on the shelf
to the right of the basil, are seedless
California raisins – the only ones I can
find on the island. I use these to make
oatmeal raisin cookies, but the oats,
along with the pine nuts for pesto, can
only be found in São Filipe, a two-hour
trip from Chã on the lone pot-holed,
lava-rock road. In all, a 46 km walk and
a four-hour round-trip later, I am finally
able to make oatmeal cookies and a
pesto sauce for good Italian pasta.
I started to cook because of my
near-insatiable appetite, though my
appreciation of the craft’s subtleties
came later. I have no secret recipes and
am willing to talk about food with just
about everyone. The majority of the
weekly conversation I have with my
parents is in foodspeak as I describe to
them, in detail, what I’ve eaten in the last
24 hours. Last week, we talked about
my “most-perfect” (quoted exactly)
tuna salad sandwich – “drained Cape
Verdean tuna, lots of onions and garlic,
mayo and mustard, a Portuguese roll,
and fresh-ground pepper” – and a bowl
of spicy gazpacho I had that particular
day. Not to be outdone by lunch, dinner
featured a fresh salsa, black beans and
brown rice, and sautéed chicken on
hand-made corn tortillas.
And dessert was fudge with
walnuts.
Don’t get me wrong: none of these
obstacles to culinary bliss bother me
too much. I’m just the person for the
mile-high walk with a backpack full of
groceries and fresh produce, through
the lava fields, forests, and clouds. I’m
doing just fine, thank you, making
chocolate cakes (with white frosting) by
candlelight on my hotter-and-hottest
gas stove, and drawing rainwater from
the cistern next to my house.
It’s the little surprises that are the
best part though, like finding nice
green beans outside Estância Roque
– which make a great accompaniment
to a fresh, kilo-sized tuna steak. a
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Confessions
of a Mile-HigH
gourMand By Sam Weeks