Back in Gabon, in the Peace Corps, my postmate Mike and I would go from time to time to eat lunch at the 'cafette', or cafeteria. Inevitably the menu would be much reduced from the long list of chicken and fish dishes with varied starches ("accompagnements"), like manioc, spaghetti, rice, and peas. Peas are a starch in Gabon.
Mike was (still is) a vegan, which in most Peace Corps experiences is practically impossible, since you're living with a host family who wants to feed you the good stuff, even when they have only a little bit, and that means meat, or at least meat-flavored sauce. In Gabon we lived independently in our own houses, and were able to buy our own groceries (canned sardines, veggies, tinned meat, lots of beans) at the small shops in town. Thus was Mike able to maintain a vegan lifestyle, eating rice and beans, or rice and lentils, or, when we went to the cafette, rice and peas.
At the beginning this was ludicrous to Seydou, the Senegalese immigrant who ran the cafet we preferred at the carrefour (main intersection in town - where all the action happened). Peas were the same as rice. Both were an accompagnement! Who would possibly want to eat them a) together and b) without some sort of fried chicken or fried fish? But of course, like any person who becomes a regular, Mike's idiosyncrasies were soon accepted, and even anticipated.
Tonight, since climbing was canceled and my Dizzy's hamburger postponed yet again, I had riz petit pois, only this time fancy-western-Thai-Kitchen style. In an attempt to use up the leftover coconut milk, rice, and my snap peas and spring onions, I made Thai red curry (from the recipe on the paste jar), with some onion (that quickly dissolved into the background) and the nice peas. The sauce was lacking something at the end so in a flash of inspiration, I made it sort of Panang by adding a teaspoon of peanut butter. But basically, it was rice and peas. And delicious!
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