“Desculpa Frango”

So last Tuesday we had a cooking day for our language and cross-culture lessons.  My language group and another language group combined too cook for our Maes.  We were supposed to make an American dish and the Maes were going to make a Mozambican dish.  We decided to make chicken tacos and desert crepes (one of the girls in our group lived in France for a year so she wanted to make these).  We were hoping that the Maes would kill the chicken for us to make our food, but nope, that was not the case.  We were told that one of us would be killing the chicken.  That person was not me, I was going to try but when it actually came time I realized that there was no way I would be able to do it.  I could watch but doing it was not going to happen.  Luckily one of the girls in our group had no problem doing it and she actually ended up killing the chicken for our Maes’ meal too.  After killing the chicken she said “Desculpa Frango” which basically means, “I’m sorry Chicken” and the Maes and other Mozambicans around loved that she apologized to the chicken and laughed for a long time and kept bringing it back up throughout the day (and several days later).  After the killings, we had to pluck and clean the chicken.  I pulled some of the feathers off but I have to say that the whole thing was disgusting, more reason for me to be a vegetarian.  For those of you who have never had the pleasure of plucking a chicken... first you put the whole chicken in boiling water for a few minutes then you start plucking.  The smell of the chicken and the fact that I am plucking feathers off of it was gross!  If I never have to participate in that again, I will be extremely happy.

Learning how to scrape the inside of a coconut

Once all the cleaning was done, we had to cut up the chicken, which I had no problems doing ( I cut through those bones like a champ).  One of the professors was impressed with how easily I cut it for how squeamish I was about killing it, my thoughts were that it looked more like the chicken I’ve dealt with when I was doing it… i.e. DEAD, featherless, and inside-less!

Making our tortillas

            While our chicken cooked we learned how to cook some of the food the Maes were making.  And then continued cooking our tortillas, cutting up our veggies and cooking the chicken.  I have to say, for our first time cooking in Mozambique, I was thoroughly impressed.  Our tacos and our crepes turned out delicious!  All our professors and PC staff that were there wanted to know how to make them and some of the Maes even said that we would be making them in our houses again!  So whoever thought I couldn’t cook, surprise I can!  

            Since then Minha Mae has let me help cook a little and at least make my own egg in the morning for breakfast. Other than that, she and my sister still do most of the cooking.  

The Mozambican meal... couve and rice, xima and chicken