FOOD BIDNEH

That is food Business but it is best pronounced food bidneh. Similar to car bidneh and money bidneh. All the above can be said to be har in the country! 

Ex: "Car bidneh har in dih country!"

It's not real English but it's close enough.

So let me tell you about the food I eat all the time. 

Casava Leaf:

I don't know if you know what casava is, but it grows in the ground in tropical places and can be used to make things like fufu. It is somehow similar to a potato and I think it is pretty good but Elder Young doesn't really like casava. I guess potatoes are better. So yeah, casava leaf is literally the leaves that come from the casava plant. No one else in the world eats them besides Liberians I'm sure. They pluck the leaf and ppound it until it is completely mashed. I think they boil it and strain it. Then, because the leaf doesn't taste that great, they put a ton of oil and seasoning and mashed pepe (pepper) in it to make it tolerable. I like casava leaf one one time but it isn't that great.

Potato Greens: 

Well, potatoes are pretty delicious, but you can't eat potatoes with rice so let's try something else. Okay the leaf that comes from the potatoes would be a good idea. Let's take the leaf, slash it into really small pieces and then fry it in oil with pepe and seasoning and oil on rice. Yeah that's basically it. This one is actually pretty good after a while. I like potatoe greens. 

Palm Butter (Palm buttah):

In palm trees there is something called a palm nut. If you take these, heat them up, ound them, strain them and then do something else with it you get palm butter. This one is actually really good if it is made well, especially if you eat it with fufu. But not Liberian fufu. Have someone from Ghana make your fufu. I don't really know how to make this one it takes too much work but I like it.

Pumpkin:

This one is really good but it isn't made from an actual pumpkin. It's actually made from squash but they call it a pumpkin. What you do for this one is cut open the squash and take out the insides. You cut up the fruit part of the aquash into small small pieces. With onions, you fry the squash in oil until the pumpkin gets soft and then you maybe add small water and pepe and seasoning and meat and you eat it with rice. It's actually really sweet. I'll probably make this one when I go home.

Tobogee: 

This is the absolute worst food in Liberia. I don't know how it is made and I don't want to know. This one and another one called bittah bowl taste jsut like that: bitter. People acutally like it and it's awful. It tastes a little bit like you're jsut eating straight baking soda because that's what they put in it. Also makes your stomach hurt. Stay away from this one at all costs.

Beans: 

I love fried beans. You take small beans and boil them (it takes forever) until they are soft. You then mash some of them and cook them in oil and pepe and seasoning and meat and stuff. Beans are delicious.

Oil: 

They use mainly two different kinds of oil in Liberia however one thing is certain: The food they cook will be swimming in oil no matter what it is. They have red oil which is pretty much terrible on anything you cook. I don't like red oil very much but a lot of africans do. They claim it is healthy but it is definitely not. The other one is basically vegetable oil but they call it like agra oil or something like that. That one is much better taste and I think better for you. Unfortunately, no matter what kind of oil you use is not good in that great of quantity. 

Dry Boney: 

This is a type of fish that is awful. It smells bad. Tastes bad. Looks bad. Everyone here loves it. I think they think that if food tastes too good then it's bad for you so you need to a little bit of bad tasting food to make sure that you remain helathy. I don't know. Never eat dry boney.

Sorry I wish I had pictures but maybe I'll try that next week. I hope you enjoyed my cooking show today! 

Oh, I can cook potato greens, a different soup called gravy that's good, fried rice (this is different from the typical fried rice you would eat at home) and then pumpkin. I'm going to learn how to cook beans soon. Okay that's all! Love you! 

Elder Bush