Thursday, January 17, 2019
A Story About Lentils
A couple of days ago, Mama Kundayo came over to visit. Janet, John and I were outside in front of
our apartments. She speaks only a few
words of English so when she wants to have a conversation, she sends for
Beatrice or Emmanuel to translate. Emmanuel
wasn’t found at first, so John, who speaks a little Swahili, was doing most of
the talking. They/we started talking
about food. Janet had made lentil soup
from some yellow
lentils that she had bought from a lady in a grain shop down the
street. After 4 hours of cooking them in a soup, they weren’t done and Janet
wanted Mama K’s thoughts on what went wrong. After struggling with the language
for a short time, Emmanuel (general concierge), and Jackie (one of the cooks),
were called over to check out the lentils.
Here’s what follows (with literary license):
Mama K: She cooked them for FOUR hours!
Emmanuel & Jackie: FOUR hours! What’s wrong with them? Let’s call over the
chief cook and ask him about the lentils.
(Chief Cook is called
over. Spoons are brought out and a lentil soup tasting proceeds.)
Mama K: See what I mean? They aren’t cooked.
Jackie: Oh, my. How
can this be??
Chief Cook: Are you sure these are lentils? What did you do
to them?
Janet: I just cooked them for FOUR hours! (She bangs her head against the table
thinking “Why me!”)
(The conversation continues...)
Mama K: What do you think happened?
Chief Cook: They look like lentils but…..
Emmanuel: What do you think went wrong? And what should
Janet do with the soup?
(Suggestions are made.)
Chief Cook: Well maybe you should….. (cook them longer? just add more spices? buy different lentils? forget it?)
Mama K: I have it!!! Let’s puree the whole thing in the
blender and see what happens.
(So Jackie takes the
pot into the kitchen. We hear whirring
and mixing and whirring and gurgling and whirring. Jackie brings the pot back
out. Bowls are brought out and everyone tastes the new concoction.)
Emmanuel: Hey Janet.
This has possibilities.
Jackie: Yes, I think we hit upon a new recipe.
(The Chief Cook tasted
the blended soup.)
Chief Cook: Hmmmm. Maybe I can use this in one of my
recipes.
Mama K: Yes, blending it was a good idea.
Janet: Well…. I’m glad we got that problem solved.
(Everyone leaves. The
soup remains.)
Janet: Now, what do I do with this?
I suspect they weren't really lentils??? Four hours of cooking lentils should have resulted in mush.
ReplyDeleteThey were some kind of soy beans! Since then, we've figured out how to get lentils and there's another great grain called chiroko which is quite good.
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