ANNABEL LANGBEIN is New Zealand’s leading food writer and publisher, and the star of the TV series, Annabel Langbein: The Free Range Cook. Her 19 cookbooks have won numerous international awards and sold more than two million copies throughout Europe, North America, and Australasia. To find out more visit annabel-langbein.com.
THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FALL LINE
Annabel Langbein
Dusk was falling, that swift folding of day into darkness that characterises the tropics. As the light condensed and dwindled I contemplated my ill planning. The fact that I would be arriving at my destination late into the night, with no bookings, no connections and no means of letting anyone know where I was seemed optimistic beyond belief. I had figured the bus trip from Rio to Ouro Preto to be around six hours but here I was with another four hours still to go. A thread of anxiety started its twist into my stomach as the bus wound ever onwards into the dense blackness of night.
The man sitting next to me on this endless journey was short and balding with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a cable-knit cardigan and grey Velcro shoes … strange how banal details like this can be recalled … it certainly wasn’t as if I fancied him. But he was a friendly enough companion to share the view from the front seat of the bus, revealing the nuances of the landscape along the way and, as the journey progressed, more personal details of his life. He was a policeman in Rio. He was making the trip to visit his recently widowed mother. He grew up in Ouro Preto and would be there for a few days over the fiesta of Nossa Senhora do Rosário. His name was Cynlio.
It was close to midnight when the bus finally rolled into the town square. Rain falling in buckets, the pitchest black of unwelcoming nights. My querulous enquiries to the bus driver in stumbling Portuguese—the whereabouts of a hotel, an information centre, a phone booth—were all met with a blank stare of incomprehension. Cynlio popped into my one-way conversation in his pidgin Portu-English, gently informing me there would be ‘no thing open now, no hotel until amanhã de manhã’. In other words, tomorrow morning. But he had a ‘good’ solution. I could stay at his mother’s house, with my own room at the front. I would be safe and she would not mind …
We are talking 1982 here, a time when Brazil was not known for its safety. That very day, as I left Rio, a radio report came on about a woman whose glittering bejeweled hand had been macheted off as she drove through town with the window open. No TripAdvisor, or Airbnb, no cell phones. No internet. A policeman in these parts could be a good guy or just as easily a bad guy.
I often think about the fall lines of life, the invisible tightropes that divide moments of calamity and serendipity. This was such a moment. Accepting the invitation of a bed from a stranger—would I get the axe murderer, or had I found myself a fabulous guide? It could have gone either way.
It seemed that my only other option would be to wander the pitch-black streets, and sleep in some doorway or roadside shelter. I had done that already in the wilderness of the Bolivian Altiplano, but in that case with the welcome company and friendship of three other hitchhikers. Right now, this option did not seem like any kind of good idea.
And so I set off with Cynlio, winding through narrow cobbled streets, head down into the malevolent night.
Cynlio’s ancient mother was up waiting for him when we arrived, drenched to the skin at her doorstep. She seemed initially rather put out to see her beloved son with a blonde stranger in tow. But explanations were made, smiles were shared, and welcomes provided. I was led through the tiny hall to the front room and the smallest of rough beds, shown the humblest of bathrooms and left to change out of my cold wet clothes. On re-entering the living room, Cynlio declared we needed to go out right away to meet his friends. The axe murderer argument going on in my head had somewhat abated—if he was going to kill me, I figured it would have happened by now.
Only a policeman would know where the after-hours joints were open in this kind of a town. And a few paces from Cynlio’s mother’s doorway took us to another nondescript entrance, and with a couple of coded knocks we were let inside a buzzing bar. Cynlio’s old schoolfriends crowded around, welcoming him back to the fold, regaling him with the stories of their lives over round after round of cachaça shots. If you haven’t come across cachaça, it is created from sugar cane, is clear as water and with the kick of eighty per cent proof alcohol. In these parts of the world it was (and probably still is) the local panacea of choice. When life dishes up endless hardship and disappointment, cachaça delivers a necessary sense of fortitude, and paints a euphoric glow around its jagged edges.
It was around 4am when we all rolled out of the bar, the men drunk as fish. Their capacity for alcohol was extraordinary. Pasqual, the tall, elegant crooner of the group, announced there would be a feast in honour of my arrival and that we must all reconvene at his home at 2pm the next day.
I retired safely to my little bed in the front room with its raggedy sheets and thin holy blanket. Around noon I woke with a hangover to beat all hangovers—cachaça’s warm hand of friendship is very short-lived. For breakfast—strong black coffee and another round of cachaça for all three of us, Cynlio’s mother included. I was starting to get the gist, no hair of the dog round here, more like the full skin to keep everyone floating in a slightly glazed state, no matter the hour.
I had thought the whole idea of a feast was one of those drunken moments everyone would forget in the clear light of a new day. But no, we were off, hurrying not to be late, Pasqual was a very good cook …
Pasqual’s house was, in fact, a bit of a shack set on the side of a hill a ways out of town. I remember ripening coffee beans hanging down the banks, and masses of wild orchids. It had stopped raining but the air was still heavy and the sky dark and threatening. In the freshness of day the group made a motley bunch—apart from Pasqual, the rest looked like street people, roughly dressed vagabonds in short order: the tall, morose, skinny man; the coal-black man with hard miner’s hands and rope muscles of arms and legs; the short fat man; a younger skinny kid who looked like he had come out of the army (camo attire noted); and of course our host, lean and tawny-skinned, with a near perfect grasp of English, and a voice smooth as butter, Pasqual. Out came a bottle of cachaça, drinks were poured and plans laid.
The miner was dispatched to get firewood. The tall morose chap was sent for his guitar, the army kid was told to find alcohol (by what means I shall never know as no one in this renegade bunch appeared to have a bean between them) and the short fat one headed off to find the women—who I was told would help clean up and be great for the dancing and ‘after’. I didn’t enquire further.
Two ancient fowls were caught from the yard and dispatched out of sight. While this was happening the crew gradually reassembled with their contributions; the women, we were told, would all be there around 6pm. By 4pm the fire was lit, and the new bottle of cachaça opened and emptied. Outside, on a wooden block near the fire, Pasqual chopped onions and garlic. The chicken was cut into large chunks and all the blood from both birds sat in a dirty old enamel jug. Throughout proceedings this jug was repeatedly raised and toasted to us, his audience. ‘Here lies the soul of my dish,’ Pasqual proclaimed. ‘Today I make my famous frango ao molho pardo.’ At this stage things weren’t looking either impressive or appetising. I started wondering how I was going to get out of this meal in order to avoid chronic food poisoning.
But it was time to start cooking. A vast iron pot was set on the fire, some oil went in and the chunks of bird browned, onions and garlic added, along with freshly picked bay leaves and oregano, a chilli or two and some black peppercorns. As soon as everything started to sizzle hard, lots of water was added to the pot along with a small handful of salt. Once it all came to the boil, the jug of blood was mixed with a little vinegar and a little cornmeal and stirred into the stew. The embers were loosened to drop the heat and this huge pot left to simmer slowly for the next couple of hours, while we went on to drink some more cachaça. By this stage, four buxom women had arr
ived—tightly topped and highly made up, they were a lot older than they would have liked me believe. The guitar came out and the melancholy in its strummer’s face fell away as if he was in the arms of a lover; the young boy was dispatched for another alcohol raid, and Pasqual turned his attention to the rest of our meal. Heading into the small makeshift kitchen inside his shack he retrieved a large jar of polenta. Water was boiled in another giant heavy iron pot over a gas burner inside; the polenta rained in and swirled to a simmer, then was left to plop for another hour or so. Back outside it was now completely dark, the sky was clear and everyone was getting very drunk. The heartwarming scent of the stew drifted on a soft breeze of jasmine. The effect was transporting, a fleeting moment when nothing could be bad in the world.
It was around 8pm when our feast was finally declared ‘pronto agora’. A pile of tin plates was assembled by the fire with a rough collection of forks and spoons, a table quickly constructed with an old door, more blocks of wood pulled up as seats and some candles lit to break the darkness. The now creamy polenta was ladled onto the plates, and this most fragrant of deep brown chicken stews spooned on top. In their hours of slow cooking over the fire those two bony old birds had sacrificed every inch of their flavour to the pot, their scraggly flesh was now rendered succulently tender, and the blood, which I had looked at with such horror, had filled out every corner of the sauce with a deep dark richness. The subtle tonings of herbs, the hint of chilli and the smoky flavour of the fire brought everything together in the most perfect balance. From so little Pasqual had created a truly magnificent dish. Against the creaminess of the polenta it was just soooo good. For about ten minutes there was silence but for the chirp of crickets, as each of us disappeared into a private reverie of gustatory bliss.
I felt like I had stumbled into my own Steinbeck novel. Here in this wild place, eating the best chicken stew in the world with a bunch of vagabonds hard on their luck. In that humble stew, beyond the pleasures of taste, there was so much else to savour. Its essence held so many of the things it takes to make a good life—resourcefulness, pride and care, a connectedness to nature, and the pleasures of a meal shared together around the table—most of the means to transform a life of raw poverty and grinding hardship.
The power of friendship and camaraderie, music and laughter, a day and a night of good times created out of little more than two tough old fowls and a crapped-out guitar. I guess you have to give the cachaça some credit as well.
A few days later I got back to Rio feeling less than ordinary, and wearing a wild rash. The doctor looked me over. ‘Ahh,’ he mused, ‘you have been bitten by our devil drink cachaça … You are a very lucky girl that it didn’t kill you.’
On the right side of the fall line, but precariously close to the precipice.
ALAN RICHMAN is a long-time food writer who has won 11 James Beard journalism awards for restaurant reviewing. He frequently angers people, but never before have they been Egyptians.
OMAR SHARIF SLEPT HERE
Alan Richman
It’s late summer in Cairo, less than a year after the rise of the Arab Spring, and I’m off to watch a protest at Tahrir Square, a celebrated venue for disparaging local government. On the schedule: a 1pm demonstration against military trials for civilians. Who wouldn’t be against that?
My only concern is whether I will have time beforehand for lunch at a nearby koshary—koshary being the national dish of Egypt. Inasmuch as I am a food writer and not a news reporter, meals tend to take priority, but perhaps not at this moment. An opportunity to observe firsthand the most expansive political movement in the Middle East since the Ottoman Empire replaced the Byzantine is difficult to resist.
I am here as a kind of culinary anthropologist, someone who delves into restaurants the way more learned men, Egyptologists, peer into pyramids. They study the way the ancients lived; I look at how modern society eats. Nothing is more transparent than a restaurant, where little except the kitchen is hidden from view.
The Arab Spring has remained to this point relatively levelheaded, which uprisings rarely do. Nevertheless, I have been warned to stay clear of Tahrir Square by young professionals I met at a dinner in Lebanon, just before departing for Cairo. Actually, they advised me to stay away from the whole city, cancel my visit because the police had abandoned their posts and the streets were out of control. You have to admit, when residents of a city like Beirut claim they’re frightened of someplace other than where they live, a sensible fellow takes note.
I feel no unease as I walk out of my hotel, located in Zamalek, a residential district on a small island in the middle of the Nile. Life on this spit of land is considered upscale by locals, but that doesn’t mean much. Living conditions in Cairo peaked nearly a hundred years ago.
My confidence in the civility of the dissenters is reinforced when I cross the bridge onto the mainland and walk past vendors selling snacks and keepsakes. If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that menace is rarely encountered in the presence of popcorn. My sense of well-being grows as I come closer. The vendors are offering Egyptian flags and Tshirts with dates commemorating the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, the former president. For sale are multicolored pom-poms whose purpose eludes me, although the presence of cheerleaders would add an additional level of friendliness to Tahrir Square.
I happen upon Mohammad Abdel Kairm, standing on the sidewalk outside his small souvenir and gift shop. He informs me that he used to live in Kew Gardens, a section of New York City’s Queens, and adds, ‘This is much safer than New York, I’m telling you.’
He says the latest troubles are being brought on not by protestors but by the police, who are paying people to cause trouble so that all Egyptians will cry out for the police and the military to return and save the country. As I leave his shop I inadvertently step on prayer rugs that have been spread out on the narrow, well-trod sidewalk. I immediately act contrite, not like a typical New Yorker who might complain that the rugs have no business being strewn along a busy corridor. The men who have placed them there immediately start yelling, but not at me. They are irritated at the shop owner for not warning me that I was about to walk over them.
In the square I see freshly baked sweet potatoes, cooked over coals, ordinarily irresistible but not on a summer day so brutally hot even the Great Sphinx is toweling himself off. Pushing, shoving, jostling, deliriously happy people are everywhere, climbing on everything in sight but leaving a wide ring of empty space around the potatoes, which are radiating a near-nuclear core of heat. I feel privileged to be at the epicenter, at least for one day, of this exhilarating and impulsive expression of democracy that is electrically racing through the Muslim world.
Although the square is already bursting, I am slightly early for the 1pm commencement of events. The timing of the start is indicative of local respect for religious traditions—Friday is a weekly holy day, when services begin around noon and generally are over by 1pm. I must decide. Only two blocks away is Koshary El Tahrir, which is to koshary what Nathan’s on Coney Island is to hot dogs. Since I’m early, I alter course and make my way there. I’m hungry, and yet another bit of wisdom I’ve picked up over the years is that it’s never smart to miss a meal.
The watchful owner of the undersized establishment, never still, leads me to a table for two, already occupied by one. Across from me is a young man who has completed his meal but does not get up to leave as I sit down. He is too polite to do so. I quickly realize that he speaks English, so I ask him if he minds sharing his table. He introduces himself as Mahmoud Abozied and replies, ‘We are friendly here. We share everything.’
My bowl of food comes with a spoon and a cup, very army field mess. Everything is modern, which isn’t commonplace in Cairo. Koshary can vary somewhat, but here I see crunchy, toasted pasta—the textural heart of the concoction—plus rice, lentils, chickpeas and fried onions. It is possibly the least-expensive restaurant food on earth, with a small plastic bowl selling for less than a dollar
.
The standard accompaniments are two sauces, one vinegary and the other peppery. I pick up the red bottle and the friendly fellow says, ‘Be careful with the pepper. It is hot like hell.’ He would make a fine food critic, because I am soon gasping. Egypt does not have a particularly fiery cuisine, and I thought he was exaggerating.
I thank him for warning me and compliment him on his culinary brilliance.
‘I am not brilliant. I am Egyptian,’ Abozied says.
I try the second sauce, the mild one.
‘Is it good?’ he asks.
‘Delicious,’ I say, meaning it.
‘It is cheap food,’ he says. ‘It is not poor food. Egyptians are simple people. We do not have a typical society rat race after money. We want safety. We have a common statement: “If you are in your house and have food, you own the world.” It is strange but true.’
He tells me that he is a financial consultant, which intrigues me, inasmuch as this appears to be a country without money. I ask him for a prediction of the future of Egypt.
‘We are in a mess,’ he says.
Then he leaves for Tahrir Square, a plain man trying to better his country, very American Revolution to me.
The food of Egypt, I will soon learn, is unsophisticated, unruly, inexpensive and totally cherished by Egyptians. Ingredients are combined in ways I cannot comprehend, and, for that matter, some of the most revered products are themselves offputting. You’d think even an Egyptian epicure would tire of mulukhiyi, a not particularly toothsome green leaf that continually pops up in dishes. Basically, it is an uncomfortable cuisine for anyone who has not lived all his life here. Nobody comes to Egypt for the cuisine, except perhaps me.
A week of eating passes before I become discouraged by the restaurants, Koshary El Tahrir being easily the most satisfying. However, all it takes is one day in the city, September 9, 2011, for me to be stripped of my hope for the Arab Spring. Everything my friends in Beirut had warned me about came true.
A Fork In The Road: Tales of Food, Pleasure and Discovery On The Road (Lonely Planet Travel Literature) Page 12