How to Win Friends & Influence People

A Lost Lesson from Dale Carniege: Eating

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Well, the way to a country's heart is through your stomach.

Therefore real secret to making friends & influencing people is this: eat everything, eat a lot of it, and eat it spicy. After you've eaten, praise the cook, praise the country that invented the dish, and praise your fellow diners for introducing you to this delicious cuisine. If you follow these simple steps, you will be the most popular and well-liked person in any place you visit. Picky eaters are unwelcome everywhere.

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So I dont want to brag, but I've become famous here. Actually, that's not accurate; my stomach has become famous here. While the other 'white men' (see previous blog for an explanation of this term) prefer white bread with lumpy peanut butter, my stomach craves fufu and eru, snails, bushmeat, coki, egusi pudding, plantains in any form, gari and obono soup, etc, etc- all the classic Cameroonian dishes (see below for descriptions of these dishes). And of course, absurd amounts of pepe. Yet, while the other white men seem to have contracted every gastrointestinal illness known to mankind, my stomach chugs along quite happily, my stock of Pepto-Bismol untouched. This really the source of my stomach's popularity- its freakish fortitude. My stomach is so famous that I've been called "a true African" for possessing it. My entire "farewell and thank you" speech from UAC was about my appetite and love of African cuisine, which made me wonder if they think the only thing I did here was eat.

Naturally, the other white men are slightly jealous of my stomach, especially since they are constantly asked why they dont eat like me. (Their response is usually "I cant eat anything with oil/rice/starches/meat/anything green, anything yellow, anything not pre-packaged, anything cooked in Africa, etc.") I tell them that I can't take credit/responsibility for my eating habits- that honor belongs to my mother. She is the one who used to take us to eat weird things like goat kidney in back alleys in Bombay, feed us pani puri from street vendors whose hands were black with grime, and force us to consume anything set in front of us. So thanks mom, you've broken my stomach in well for this trip. You should do the same for these other white men. They're really missing out on some great, albeit carb-heavy, palm-oil loaded, food.

So what's the lesson in all this, you ask? An iron stomach is the traveler's greatest assest.

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Fufu and eru: Perhaps the most Cameroonian dish of all, it consists of a giant ball of bland cassava dough served with green leaves soaked in palm oil, often with snails or meat mixed in. Eaten with hands.

Snails: Very popular in the Southwest Province. In the Mamfe area they are the main source of protein. Tastes and feels like rubber. Sometimes eaten on a stick, othertimes with vegetables.

Bushmeat: Collective term for any unusual (and often illegally-hunted) game meat: antelope, monkey, porcupine, various large burrowing animals.

Coki: Either made from corn or beans which are ground (by hand) into a powder and then a paste, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. Served in a big lump. One of my favorites.

Egusi pudding: Exactly like coki except made from ground melon seeds and often with meat inside.

Plantains: Like bananas, but stickier. Can be eaten unripe or ripe, fried, boiled, steamed, baked, etc. Either totally bland or extremely tasty.

Gari and Obono soup: Gari is basically a yellow version of fufu (big bland starch ball). Obono soup is flavored with the dried pits of bush mangoes. (Gari is sometimes served with okra or egusi soup.)