33 - Central African Republic

The Central African Republic or Centrafrique is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. It has a population of about 4.7 million.

The area has been inhabited for millennia but was colonized by the French in the 19th century. It became independent in 1960 and has been in a state of civil war since 2012.

Despite having mineral deposits, uranium reserves, crude oil, gold and diamonds CAR is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. It is estimated to be the 'unhealthiest' country in the world!

The nation is divided into 80 ethnic groups which each have their own language, the earliest settlers - about 10 - 8,000 years ago were probably the Aka or pygmy tribe.

In most CAR families the women are responsible for gathering, producing, preserving and preparing the food, hunting, trapping and fishing are done by men. Staple foods are cassava, rice, squash, pumpkins and plantains. Okra features in most meals along with peanuts and peanut butter.

For our visit to Central African Republic we made the popular Kanda a pumpkin seed and meatball dish, a spinach stew and steamed rice.

The meatballs were made from ground pumpkin seeds,
ground beef, onion and garlic.

You just squeeze all the ingredients together and
then make them into golf ball shaped balls

The sauce is made from onion, chopped tomatoes and chilli peppers

The spinach stew ingredients are onions, tomatoes,
green pepper (we used yellow as we had one that needed eating) spinach, cayenne pepper and peanut butter.

After I had made the meatballs and put them in the fridge I made the tomato sauce. Then the meatballs were placed in it, the lid put on the pan and they were left to cook for about half an hour. It was weird not to fry the meatballs first to brown the outsides but we followed the recipe!

As they cooked they did become a little darker 

but still looked pretty raw! 😬

When they were ready to eat I sprinkled chopped parsley over the top.

As usual the vast pile of spinach disappeared to nothing once they had been steamed and mixed with the peanut butter paste.

We made steamed rice to go with the meatballs.

Our finished meal

The verdict

hmm, well it was an experience!. 

It tasted pretty bland despite the addition of chillies. We actually added salt to it  which we rarely do - but there wasn't any in the recipe - it needed some.

The pumpkin seed made the meatballs texture very grainy, I guess they are used as a filler when meat is scarce.

The spinach stew was the best bit. I liked the peanut butter addition, although we didn't cook it for the 30 minutes recommended in the recipe - that seemed excessive.