This time of year I always get a bit nostalgic for my summer
spent in East Africa. I miss the warm African sun that would beat down on me as
I would drink my morning coffee, the sound of a small child calling out to me “mzungu!
mzungu!”, and the fragrant and sometimes foul smells of the market.
While my memory has a tendency to romanticize my East
African experience, depicting my food experiences as a paradise where there was
an abundance of mango trees and every morning I could go out under the shade of
the tree and pick one fresh off the branch for my breakfast. In reality, the
Ugandan cuisine is anything but that. It is a diet of heavy starches such as
posho (cooked maiz meal with hot water), matoke (plantains) and beans, lacking
any spice or flavor enhancer, and most likely lacking in much nutritional value.
Meat was a rarity, but when it was available, it most always came via a goat
(recall one of my previous posts: Tin Can Tony).
So earlier this week when I found myself at the Austin food
trailer, Cazamance, I was pleased to learn that it was co-owned by a Senegalese
man and that yes, there was goat on the menu. Rooted in West African cuisine, Cazamance
restaurant and café draws inspiration from its Austin community creating fusion
dishes such as the goat and lamb casserole which combines traditional West
African ingredients of tomatoes and onions with south of the border flavors
such as poblano peppers. And, like any good Austin restaurant, Cazamance prides
itself on using fresh local ingredients, including meat products! I can’t wait
to try the Dakar lamb burger.
Cazamance’s lunch location on 1102 E. Cesar Chavez, is a
beautiful oasis on the East Side with a warm and gracious owner/cook named Iba.
It’s a calming space, surrounded by succulents and hues of the ocean. For a
brief moment one truly does feel transported to the West African coast, and if
you listen close enough you might even be able to hear in the distance the
crash of waves.
