Bon appétit!

Togolese food is delicious. 12:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., when I sit down for my meals, are my favourite times here in Togo. Maize, or corn, is the staple carbohydrate and a range of dishes can be prepared from it. Akumé, ablo, egblin, and akapa are a form of patte (similar to oatmeal but solid, made out of maize flour, and eaten by hand). For some forms of patte, the maize is fermented for a unique taste. For others, the patte, normally white, is coloured with red tomato paste in the cooking process. Patte is eaten with sauces, vegetables and meat. Apart from the different forms of patte, abora, which I am yet to eat, is prepared from maize grain. Zobì is the porridge made out of maize flour and is eaten mostly for breakfast. Maize is also eaten as a snack between meals as boiled or roasted corn on the cob. When it comes to drinks made out of maize, liha is a popular among children. It is a dark brown liquid sweetened with sugar and drank cold. The local brew, tchoukoutchou (pronounced chukuchu), also made from fermented maize, is especially favoured in the north, where the Kabiyé live.

Togolese sauces, eaten with patte, rice, couscous or pasta, are made from a range of food items, from tomatoes to ground fish to traditional medicine. Aluma and essrou are two traditional antibiotics prepared into a tasty green sauce used to treat minor tummy aches. Fish is the meat I have eaten most here in Togo. Once bought, the fish is cleaned, fried whole in oil and served with sauce made out of tomatoes. Beef is more expensive than chicken and fish, and is the meat I have eaten least.

It was interesting to find that Togolese food is very similar to food in my home country, Kenya, even though the climate in West Africa is very different from that in East Africa. Maize is also the staple carbohydrate in Kenya and can be used to make ugali (a form of patte different from Togolese patte) and githeri, a dish comprising maize grains mixed with beans and prepared with onions, tomatoes, and spices. One difference in the diets is the abundance of yam in West Africa and its scarcity in East Africa. Yam, in Togo, can be boiled and eaten with egg. Much to my delight, bread is abundant in Togo. But different from Kenya or the US where one buys bread in a grocery store or a shop, here in Togo, bread is sold in the market, in the streets and even on the beach. It is carefully stacked in huge metallic basins supported on the head. It is buttered or eaten with eggs or meat.

One cannot argue that food is one of the most important features of any society. When it comes to Togo, the generous potions served, of especially carbohydrate, tell of the nature of physical activity in Togo. In the capital, Lomé, most people are self-employed in the informal sector, working long hours from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The same applies to the farming villages in the north of the country. Due to the physically demanding nature of the jobs, patte is a preferred food for many. In all honesty, this short blog post does not do justice to the tastes, and presentation of the varieties of food I have come across here in Togo. Upon my return, I will miss not only the food, but also the exciting trips to the grand marché to buy ingredients.