Musings about Everything and Nothing: Food and Drink

"So how was the food?" is one of the first questions people ask me about my trip to Benin. I really enjoyed the meals, but I was definitely craving a nice cheeseburger by the time we landed in Nebraska. It is often hard to describe in words, so luckily I have pictures of a couple of the more notable meals we enjoyed.
I would also like to point out that our guide, Boris, did a fantastic job of researching the restaurants to ensure that they were 'safe' and would not lead to any nasty side affects. We were able to enjoy locally prepared foods as well as fresh fruits and vegetables and not one of us got sick!
Without further ado, let's enjoy the food and drink!

Meal at Africa Rice

During our tour of Africa Rice we took our lunch at the facility cafeteria, a tent outdoors where we could enjoy the beautiful weather. For the first half our trip this was the typical food choice of the group. The meal consisted of a chicken leg, rice, tomato sauce, a nice green salad, and a bottle of water. The green relish in the bottom right of the photo is very spicy and I was really glad I decided to try a little for taking a big bite! The meal ended with a quarter section of pineapple and let me say - you have never had good pineapple until you have had pineapple in Benin. It is so sweet and delicious that no matter how full you may be, you never turn down pineapple.
Speaking of pineapple - Songhai, a research farm we visited, bottles their own pineapple juice and we took every opportunity to drink some during our stay. They had many other flavors too, but pineapple is the far ans away winner.

Pineapple juice at Songhai

In between meals we often found local snacks including fried banana slices, cookies from Songhai, and cashews. Benin has many banana and cashew trees throughout the country and we were able to enjoy them on many occasions.

Fried Banana Slices - As we passed through a village market, Boris
purchased this snack explaining that it is a local favorite.

Biscuit Cookies - made at Songhai

Cashews - nearly every container is recycled in Benin including
this alcohol bottle containing roasted cashews

A couple times we ventured away form the more European style restaurants in favor of the the local fare. Pictured below is fufu or pounded yam with local cheese and a spinach sauce. The yams in Benin are not like the yams we are used to in the US. They are very large, tough root vegetables not the sweet potatoes we call yams. To make fufu, the yams are first pealed and boiled to soften them. They are then mashed used a mortar and pestle to pound the yams. The result is the large white ball of yam shown below. I describe the consistency as a combination of mashed potatoes and Play Dough due to its sticky nature.

Fufu, cheese, and spinach sauce

Also visible is a small plate of chicken already pulled from the bone - courtesy of Boris' request. We noticed early in the trip that the meat options were not what we have come to expect in the US were we raise our livestock to have a lot of meat per animal. Most livestock in Benin is raised via free range and so there is often little meat available. Many of us opted to go partially vegetarian for the rest of the trip - not because the meat was not delicious, but because we did not want to fight to get what little meat there was.

Enjoying our food at a roadside restaurant

So tasty!

Some other meals:

Wonderfully delicious avocado salad

Pasta with prawns - came out with heads, shells and all!

Beverage options:
Although I don't have a picture of the bottle, this is where most of our bottled water originated - a natural mineral water spring where the water comes out warm. The water does not have to be treated before bottling and we even sampled some fresh from the spigot.