"The horror! The horror!"

Following the footsteps of Charlie Marlow in the Heart of Darkness (based on Joseph Conrad's visit to the Congo), my psyche has been continually echoing "The Horror! The Horror!" throughout my daily activities. Watching the show "Man vs. Food", looking at my patient's eyes through my ophthalmoscope, eating a red velvet bundt cake; my mind like a broken record player keeps saying "Am I going to be able to pull this off?" "Am I crazy?". (First, I wish I can be Adam and venture in his greasy yumminess. Second, the Optic Nerve does look a little like an egg-- I hope they eat eggs in the Congo. Thirdly, why can't they make bundt cake the official food of the Congo?. ) Okay, I'm officially insane and need to stay on track.

This last week, I have been desperately researching the Congolese culture and history to get a better idea of what I am dealing with. With 66,020,000 people in this country (19th largest in the world), centered in Africa and the Second Congo War killing 5.4 million (deadliest since WWII), I realized I have no idea who they are. I'm glad I'm doing this project. (read up on the Congo at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo). In terms of the variety of foods they eat, it is typically local available fruits, grains and vegetables, milk and meat products, which is expected. One major staple they have is the cassava root (or Yucca), which I have never heard of before. To my surprise, I found out that cassava is also known as Tapioca, which comes in those famous forms of sugary balls added in a milky tea served in those ultra-bubbly type Boba cafes, found usually within a 1 mile radius to a Ranch 99 market. Knowing this, I am feeling much better now about all this. Their food isn't too foreign to me....sigh

Thanks to my better half in partaking on this journey, he has helped look up some Congolese recipes with me and will be my food-test lab rat for the next few years. Hope he doesn't leave me for McDonald's after, but I do promise to have lots of Pepto ready. After using Google's search engine to find recurring recipes of popular dishes, I think I have a good menu for this weekend. With the help of two great sites The Congo Cookbook site and RecipeZaar and an Iowan Congo lady (A. Soleil Banguid), I am ready to begin cooking.