Beer and Fish

Eating and drinking in Cameroon reflects a mix of European and traditional cultures. Having grown up in Europe I find some of the traditional dishes here challenging, mainly because of the texture of food. However, food is plentiful here and I know I can always survive on the local staples of beer and fish!

Fish is often marinated in hot chili sauce, roasted over charcoal and served with dodo (fried slices of ripe plantain – a large green type of banana) - not a million miles away in spirit from British fish and chips. This is served in many roadside shack-bars along with copious amounts of the many varieties of local and imported lagers. My guidebook says that beer-drinking is “an extremely popular pastime” here, which is not wrong!

As a former health minister my Dad approves of the consumption of fish with beer but feels that some spend too much of their limited budget on the latter! However he also says that, in the case of Guinness, it adds to the diet which is traditionally deficient in vitamin B because the local staple root vegetable has very little vitamins. As well as the many Brasseries du Cameroun breweries which overcome appalling road conditions to reach every last corner of the country, Douala also has a Guinness brewery, one of only five outside Britain and Ireland, reflecting the huge popularity of the drink.

Also good here are the prawns which gave the country its name. When the Portuguese arrived in Douala in 1492 they found the Wouri estuary completely silted up with huge prawns (cameroes in Portuguese), a natural phenomenon that occurred every few years (less so now because of pollution). I've eaten some very good fish, prawns and crab caught fresh locally at Limbe on this trip.

As regards the traditional local dishes I’m not as adventurous as I used to be on trips here. I have avoided the Douala favourite, ndole, a bitter green leaf cooked with spices, groundnuts or melon seeds with meat (not always the best bits!!), prawns and dried fish. I have tried a couple of other green leaf based dishes, such as huckleberry leaves with corn fufu and the local Buea dish of eru, the latter being my Dad’s favourite which is always cooked in the house on a Friday. Last week he warned me I probably shouldn’t try it as it contains too much hot chili. Those of you who know my liking for hot Indian food will know that at that point I felt obliged to have a go. I was pleasantly surprised, on putting it in my mouth that, compared to a vindaloo, it seemed pretty mild. What I hadn’t realised as I reached for some more was that the chili is felt in the throat as it goes down, rather than in the mouth. The result is a feeling somewhat like being throttled as your throat closes and your eyes bulge and start to water profusely!