food and friendship

So often we find ourselves in a situation that is foreign to us.  We may be in a familiar place, with familiar faces, but the activity is new, or the place is new and all other things are familiar, either way we have to adjust.  We are momentarily out of our comfort zone, forced into a new mold, required to wiggle around until we find a spot we seem to fit into.

One of these past Saturdays I had the privilege of having my friend Mirlande come over and teach me how to cook one of my favorite Haitian dishes, Mais Moulen ak legum.  This dish is a course corn meal with black beans in it and it is served with a mix of wonderful vegetables and often meat of some sort.  Mirlande’s tradition is to offer to come teach a group of us ladies how to cook a specific Haitian dish, but this time I was the only taker, yet, as it is one of my favorite dishes and I happen to already have most of the ingredients, and because my teacher is generous with her time and wisdom, I took Mirlande up on her offer and decided to brave the long day ahead.

Cooking in Haiti is an event.  Agreeing to take part in this lesson I was agreeing to give Mirlande the majority of my day, and luckily I knew this ahead of time.  It also meant that I would be offering all that time to another language as well.  Mirlande has wonderful English, but whether she is aware of our desire to learn Creole or she simply thinks we need to learn it I knew that this day would be spent mostly speaking Creole.  Needless to say I was in one of those foreign situations, but on the more extreme end of the spectrum: my place was familiar, but my company was still fairly new, my language was new, and the activity we were engrossed in was completely new to me.  I knew it would be a day of learning, and I knew I would need a nap afterwards.

Mirlande arrived mid-morning and we sat a while and chatted while finishing our breakfast.  Then we made a grocery list, I already had the Haitian course-ground corn meal that we would need, and I had plenty of oil and butter, and some pimant (spicy peppers) and magi (Haitian bouillon, but it comes in little squares that are premeasured for buying and using convenience).  I also had black beans, garlic and cabbage and Mirlande had brought some militon from her garden to use as well.  We still needed carrots, green onions, onion, eggplant, sweet oranges (in Haiti there are sweet oranges and there are oranges that are not sweet, they have different uses in cooking), green beans, parsley, thyme, tomato paste, and beef.

We began by peeling and cutting vegetables as water and oil heated in a large pot on the stove for the beans to boil in.  I was informed that putting salt or magi (because it has salt in it) in the water would cause the beans not to cook quickly, so instead one must put oil.  Actually, one must put “ti lwil” which appeared to be about a tablespoon of oil.  As we waited on the water to boil we cut the militon into quarters, the carrots and eggplant were merely pealed; the green onions were cleaned then cut into sticks about an inch and a half long.  The beans were cleaned up as well, removing any stringy parts and cutting them into half inch pieces.  Once the water was boiling we put in the beans, about two cups, covered it and periodically Mirlande would pour a little more water in the pot.  She claimed that the cooler water stirred the beans up from the bottom of the pot instead of actually stirring them, and I’m not sure if this is true or if I simply mis-interpreted what she said, but whatever the reason may be, we added cool water to the boiling water. Next we turned our attention to another pot we had placed the raw meat in.  Mirlande had pealed and halved the oranges, taking out the seeds.  She rubbed the meat down with the orange halves being sure to cover the meat thoroughly with the oranges.  Then we poured the orange juice into a bowl to keep it for later on in the cooking process and started heating the meat up on the stove, periodically pouring orange juice over it and water so it wouldn’t burn.  Once the meat was cooked through Mirlande covered it with the tomato paste, mixing that around in the bowl so that it completely covers the meat.  Then she placed the vegetables on top of the meat; this was done strategically and with care, and therefore I feel the process needs to be repeated here as well to ensure you do it exactly right when you make it yourself. 

1.     First the eggplant go on top of the meat, do not cut them, simply place them on top of the meat but on the edges of the pot, then place the carrots in a similar manner but along the eggplant. 

2.     On top of this place the cabbage, cut into smaller chunks, about the size of the palm of your hand similar to how one might prepare cabbage for Corned Beef and Cabbage. 

3.     Lastly, the green beans and spinach, leaves whole.  The whole thing must be covered with plastic and then covered with a lid that is smaller than the pot so that as the vegetables get steam-cooked they can be squished down with the lid. 

As the vegetables were steaming we finished the beans and prepared the mais, or cornmeal.  The black beans, once soft, are strained (save the water) and a generous amount of butter is placed on them to melt around them (about a half cup of butter).  The water that was just removed from the beans moments before is added back to them and a piman is placed in the pot to add some heat.  Mirlande poured about a cup and a half of the mais into a mixing bowl, going through it to make sure there were no bad pieces among the course-ground cornmeal.  Then she filled the mixing bowl with water.  She washed the cornmeal, stirring it up with her fingers.  Once it had settled she poured out the water, and since it is such a course-grind there was no real straining necessary, it simple laid heavy in the bottom of the bowl.  She repeated the process and then poured the now slightly more voluptuous mais into the pot with the beans and added a magi or two, according to taste.  More water is added as necessary, but once the correct amount is added (and honestly I think this is a matter of opinion, there seemed to be no real measuring going on) the mais should only be stirred to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan, but otherwise left to boil, soften, and grow. 

The remainder of the process is merely allowing the food to reach the correct tenderness.  Once the vegetables are properly steamed they are to be removed from the pot, the militon, eggplant, cabbage, and spinach are to be crushed into a pulp, another little tube of tomato paste is to be added to that mush and it can all be stirred together.  The carrots get cut up and they, with the green beans are placed into a skillet, along with the diced up onion and green pepper.  The previously mushed vegetables go in here, as well as some cloves of garlic and stalks of green onion, which are crushed to a beautiful, green pulp in the pilon (mortar and pestle) and the whole thing becomes a wonderful mix of all these amazing, green goodies.  

This can be seasoned to taste.  Once the vegetables are finished, the beans and mais has reached its appropriate plumpness, and the meat has been cut into more manageable-sized pieces these three things can be served on top of one another.

This meal was absolutely divine I hope it turns out well for you if you attempt it.  It took us about three hours of actual cooking, four to five hours with prep and discussion included (o:  But this meal, this cooking lesson was so about so much more than food and technique.  I learned about history, about patience, about friendship and conversation.  We discussed Christ, Godly relationships and the things that seem trivial when written down for the world to see, but to me at that moment, allowed me to feel like a part of Mirlande’s life, like a true friend