the best (and worst) african foodstuff

Culinary week concludes with the best (and worst) African foodstuff.

Best African Meal: Grilled Red Snapper, Ilha de Moçambique
The Lonely Planet website describes Ilha de Mozambique thusly: "Tiny reed houses and pastel-coloured colonial mansions rub shoulders among the palm trees on tiny Ilha de Moçambique (Mozambique Island), a former trading port and one-time capital of Portuguese East Africa. It’s haunting, magical, and a must-see. "

My first night there, I visited Reliquias, a seafood restaurant on the northern tip of the island. Naturally, we ordered fish.

"No fish."

"What?"

"We have no fish."

"Well what do you have?"

"Prawns."

"Are they frozen?"

"Yes."

"Look, how can you not have any fish? We're surrounded by fishermen!"

It was true. Everywhere you looked, there were shirtless guys in these tiny one-man dhows, sailing with black plastic tarps. The boats looked like the raft that Tom Hanks built at the end of Castaway, but somehow less stable. I pointed to one of them who had just beached.

"Look. Fisherman!"

The fisherman saw me pointing and gave an excited start, sprinting down the beach in bare feet carrying a line full of fish. He ran right into the restaurant and stopped at our table, sweating and out of breath.

"Red snapper," he proclaimed, showing his prized catch, which was still alive and flopping excitedly.

"Ok," said the waiter. "Fish."

They grilled it over open pit charcoal with lime and salt, and we ate it al fresco with a view toward the sun setting over the bay. Flaky, succulent and as fresh as humanly possible, it was the most delicious fish I've ever had.


Worst African Meal: Grilled Red Snapper, Ilha de Moçambique
The Lonely Planet website, I've noticed, has a tendency toward euphemism. When they say "former trading port", they mean former slave-trading port. When they say "haunted", they mean there's no electricity. And when they say "tiny reed huts", they mean slum.

Ilha used to be a big tourist destination, before independence. You can tell by the large number of defunct businesses on the northern side of the island, which included a shuttered dive shop, a shuttered cinema, a shuttered discotheque, and a shuttered hotel with an empty concrete pool facing the ocean. Despite recent foreign investment and all sort of rah-rah boosterism by the local chamber of commerce, it's never re-captured its past glory. And it never will. Because it's been invaded by squatters. Who live in the "tiny reed huts." That take up four-fifths of the island.

And there's no sewage system.

The squatters have a solution though, in the classic model of African ingenuity. At low tide, (and probably high tide, as well,) they use the beach as a latrine.

Which brings us back to the fish. You remember that fisherman in his little dhow? One thing I noticed, after watching those guys for a couple days, was that they never really managed to get too far off shore. And they didn't need to, since, because of the constantly replenished supply of "fish food" in the water on the southern side island, the fish came to them.

Fed on high-nutrient human waste, that red snapper was, and will always remain, the most delicious, and most disgusting, fish I've ever had.



Photo credits: google maps, google image search for "red snapper", google image search for "baby ruth bar", 22000 hours in MSpaint.