“It’s crazy as it gives the impression of being there,” I naively made the reflection, the other day, immersing my nose in the vapors of a bowl of smoking rice, embellished with typical Cameroonian flavors. The dish is called the “Afrosubsaharienne” and it is served at the Food Truck New Soul Food counter, installed every Friday midday on the Parvis de la Défense, in Puteaux in the Hauts-de-Seine. It is a recipe based on braised chicken with white pepper pepper (a variety of fermented and slightly spicy pepper that grows in Cameroon), fried plantains, fragrant basmati rice and a peanut sauce spicy. I have never set foot in Cameroon or Central Africa and, yet this smell of smoked wood that emerges from the plate. She is, explains to me Rudy Lainé, the owner of the brand, also owner of a restaurant in the 10
The experience, lived about ten kilometers from my home, is a trip in itself. Because she summons the five senses, that she shares, that we introduce her into her body and because she leaves a memorable memory, food remains the best way to soak up the culture of a other country. A good reflex, when you arrive for the first time in a city, is to explore the small restaurants in the surroundings. Taste the local cuisine allows you to take the pulse, meet people and ultimately connect – by taste – with the mind of a place but also, and above all, with its customs.
Bouis -countryside
We all have in mind the escapades of Antoine de Maximy and these legendary television sequences, in which the presenter of I will sleep at your home, known to travel the world in backpack, settles at the table of Inhabitants to taste exotic dishes (gutting donuts In the Mongolian steppes , lobster porridge In Nicaragua …), before managing to invite themselves to their homes for the night. This way of traveling by making food the starting point for wanderings is not new. It was strongly popularized in the early 1970s with the appearance, in the United States and Europe, of the first “hikers” or Backpackers’Guides – such as the backpacker guide, the Lonely Planet or the collection of Hitchhiker’s Ken Welsh guide. With them, for the first time, travel guides no longer recommend only to visit tourist sites, hotels or archaeological monuments but now orient travelers to restaurants, host tables and country bouis -bouis – So many culinary anchoring points that show local crops in one aspect that could not be more immersive.
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