CAFOD blog

Food in DR Congo is interesting and disappointing – and by no means secure for the majority of people. Manioc or cassava (same thing) is the staple for the poorest with its root the mainstay for millions of Congolese meals.

Despite this plant’s relatively low nutritional value – especially with regards to protein – it will grow where other crops won’t, allowing people to fill their stomachs even during the worst upheavals DR Congo has to offer.

Although the plant grows literally like a weed, its preparation is much more laborious. The skin of the cassava root contains poisonous chemicals and so the whole must be scraped and soaked for many hours to leach out the toxins.

After a couple of days the root is cut up into chunks and dried in the sun before being pounded into flour. Sadly many Congolese believe the richly green leaves of the cassava are too poisonous to eat.

I ate boiled cassava leaves at the parish in Mongbwalu and they tasted very much like spinach and contain a lot of goodness. And despite many programmes, including CAFOD projects, to encourage the growth of more nutritional crops like maize and haricots, the default position for communities destabilised by frequent flux is cassava.

Again it seems the people of DRC are not benefiting from the fecundity of their country’s soil.

In the straggling town of Bunia there are a few places on the main drag where teams of aid workers sit down to eat. I am told there is an Indian restaurant, and another boasts Greek cuisine. The UN even runs one eatery where you leave your passport at the door.

Regardless of culinary aspirations, most menus list the same items, and after eight days in DRC I have eaten plate-loads of shredded cabbage and a disorientating amount of carbohydrate in the form of chips, roast potatoes, rice, plantain and dry sliced bread.

There is chicken and fish on offer, but my on-going relationship with a stomach bug is steering me clear of those.

It is a tribute to the priorities of humankind that wherever I have gone and whatever has not been available – from meat to bottled water – you always see people in the evening with a beer in hand.

The famous Congolese brand Primus comes in big bottles from a brewery in Kisangani on the Congo River about 500 miles west of Bunia.

The beer has been made in the city since colonial times and whatever else has shut down or been destroyed due to fighting, or political instability, the Primus brewery has continued without cease.

And just before I head off to dinner, I want to note the other stalwart remainder of Belgian influence – mayonnaise. Good mayonnaise.

Alongside your shredded cabbage with its rare jewels of sliced tomato or avocado there will come mayonnaise. With your palm-oil-fried chips there will be placed a well-dug jar of the stuff – defying all scientific norms by refusing to separate in the staggering heat.

Posted by PascaleP