Meat and Greet

There is a place of legend in northeastern Dar es Salaam, a place whose very mention seems to cause uncontrolled salivating in a large percentage of both the local and expat population. That place is known simply as...Morocco Burgers.

The actual set-up for Morocco Burgers is quite humble. There is, for example, no official sign; "Morocco Burgers" just becomes the default name due to its location near the Morocco daladala stop and its single menu item. Nor is there any indication that food of any sort is available within. You just have to know. Burgers are served from inside what looks to be an old train car, painted bright red and permanently parked in the back lot of Morocco petrol station. There is no place to sit or eat (save the concrete curb), no posted prices, and no speaking of English, but the place smells unbelievably good and I've never been there when there wasn't a waiting line. (Or rather, a waiting cluster. Tanzanians don't really do lines, per se.)

I was rather shocked by that delicious aroma when I first passed by Morocco burgers (sadly, on my way to dinner elsewhere). I've been a vegetarian for about three or four years now, and I don't really miss meat - I never ate it that much to begin with, and the smell of meat cooking is usually something I can take or leave. But goodness. That scent eminating from that little red box reminded me of those Saturday morning cartoons, when a good smell becomes a pair of long fingers that tickle the character's nostrils and float him through the air towards their source.

Despite the vegetarianism, I decided before coming here that I would be content with eating Tanzanian meat. For one, I (correctly) figured it'd be a significant part of the culture that I'd be missing out on. For two, I reasoned that the animals that become food in Tanzania tend to live happier, more animal-like lives. There aren't any factory farms here, or feeding of antiobiotics to livestock, or any of that stuff that freaks you out in "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Your typical American cow would never see anything as wide open as the Pugu Hills cattle market, but it seems that most cattle here take such big expanses for granted. In fact, my daily living space in Dar intersects with that of livestock fairly often - there was a rogue chicken in our courtyard last night, for example. Goats are kept in front yards. Daladalas swerve to avoid cows on the roads. The urban arena probably isn't the most salubrious environment for them, but it reassures me that animals raised for food in Tanzania at least have room to move. And that simply makes me feel better about eating them.

And then for three, I suspected that it might be considered rude not to partake in meat - or if not rude, exactly, at least one of those things that would be a weird, white person thing to do. This turns out to have been mostly correct as well. The typical Tanzanian meal is: green veggie, non-green veggie (bananas count), and meat with sauce, all dumped over rice. Fruit is always served for dessert. If I try to order this combo at a Tanzanian restaurant without the meat centerpiece, I am met with consternation. Am I sure I don't want meat? How about chicken? Or fish?

This same combo has been my lunch at the Women's Dignity office every day that I've been here, and although the exact identity of the players changes, the basic line-up is always the same. And the sassy mama lisha who serves our food, Mama Salma, already intimidates me. There's no way I'd dare to tell her to hold the meat. Not a chance. Telling her to hold the china (a spinach-peanut thing to which I am allergic) was already scary enough. Man, did I get the Eye.

So I have been making my way through a fine variety of meats at work lunches. And I haven't been sick at all, though I do get a little grossed out every so often. Chicken and fish are pretty easy, although eating them always involves handpicking the edible bits out from the bones and skin. The chunks of beef and goat are a little harder to stomach - they're no longer on the actual animal carcass, but big bits of gristle and often bone are still attached. Luckily, I haven't yet found myself presented with octopus at work. Octopus is fairly common here - it's on sale from street vendors all over Dar, with little orange tentacles dangling over the edge of their trays. But putting aside the wisdom of eating raw octopus from a street vendor, I think my love of cephalopods may be just a little too great to eat one of their numbers. We'll see if the situation presents itself on Zanzibar.

No, the only meat of Mama Salma's that really throws me off is liver. Liver is my food nemesis, I've decided. The smell is disgusting. The texture is way too homogenous (I thought I was eating a mushroom on my first bite). And the taste is somehow both bland and sour, vaguely menacing, just a little too similar to the taste of blood in your mouth when you bite your tongue. Ick. Yes, liver is gross. I've taken to hiding it under napkins or papaya rinds when it comes through the rotation, so as not to incur Mama Salma's ridicule.

Aside from the vile liver, I think my summer meat adventure is going fairly well. But I still expect that when I get back home, I'll switch fairly easily into my old veggie ways. The things that pushed me into vegetarianism in the first place still hold, to the point where I notice that the things that particularly ick me out about meat are the things that remind me that it's meat - gristle, bone, skin, the things that tend to be absent in American meat. I figure that if I don't like eating the parts of an animal that remind me it's an animal, that's probably indicative of some sort of internal denial.

So last night Johann, a dutch fellow housemate who works out near Morocco, kindly brought us all back burger dinners. I haven't had a burger for two or three years, I think, and I have to concede that my meal was pretty darn delicious. And if that's the last burger I have for another two or years, by golly at least I went out on a good note.