extend my stint in the Congo this time around just for the gourmet
experience of lituma and other irreplaceable Congolese gastronomic
treats.
Who would blame me? You can't get lituma anywhere else in the world.
Not even in restaurants of the Chaussée d'Ixelles, the Brussels
neighborhood the Congolese diaspora has rechristened Matonge after the
famous Kinshasa neighborhood that saw the rise of Soukous star Papa
Wemba.
Consider the hell on earth my American buddies would live in without
the occasional hamburger--there are also veggie burgers for my
vegetarian friends--and you get an idea of my personal hell in America
where I'd be salivating for years on end on the remote prospect of
eating lituma on my next trip to the Congo!
Lituma is a culinary specialty of the Lokele ethnic group--a tribal
cluster of clans of fishers and fishwives along the Congo River and
its tributaries in the Orientale Province.
That could explain why lituma is usually eaten with fish (fresh or
dried, cooked as stew or baked in leaves)--though it is also eaten
with meat. The late Abeti Masikini, a Soukous singer and Kisangani
native who wasn't a Lokele herself, even immortalized the formula
"samaki na lituma" (Swahili = fish and lituma) in her hit song
"Likayabo" (dried salted fish).
Well, there are other ethnic groups of the upper Congo River that also
have their own ways of making lituma, but none of their versions can
match the texture and the taste of the Lokele lituma.
To come up with the vintage Lokele lituma, you need to mix plantains
that are neither too soft nor too hard. I've seen in American food
markets plantains imported from Latin America: they are green and
hard; and they rot right away when you keep them for a few days on the
kitchen counter to soften them.
While some ethnic groups would also add boiled manioc in the mix or
make lituma with manioc only, the real lituma is made entirely with
plantains.
After peeling off the skin of plantains, you cook them by boiling.
When the plantains are ready, you first separate the harder plantains
from the softer ones. You then lightly break the former with a pestle
in a mortar and let everything cool off. After which, you pound the
plantains to a soft but consistent pulp. A muscled undertaking no
doubt.
Use a thread to cut the pulp into needed morsels. This evening I had
lituma and fish for dinner. Yummy!...
***
(Sent via BlackBerry)
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