Chad 🇹🇩 and Central African Republic 🇨🇫

We combined the African countries of Chad and Central Africa for our meal of Moo Sate, Chad Salad, Spiced Papaya Milk, and African Benne Wafers. Moo Sate is beef marinated in curry, chili powder, garlic, onion, lemon juice, and honey. The dipping sauce was coconut cream, soy sauce, peanut butter, onion, Worcestershire sauce, Lemon juice, and Tabasco sauce. The dipping sauce was sweet with a little spice. I like anything that contains the word sauce so I enjoyed the creamy sauce on the grilled beef. Rob was not a fan – too “peanuty”.

The Chad Salad was brown rice, cucumber, bananas, raisins, and almonds tossed in a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, coriander, cumin, cayenne pepper, and honey. The combination of ingredients was so different we weren’t sure we would like it but it was actually very tasty!

Spiced Papaya Milk is papaya, milk, cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger. While making the papaya milk I was distracted and didn’t realize a small Tupperware lid was in the bottom of the blender. We wondered why it was so loud but I kept blending. The drink was ruined. 🙁 I strained some so we could taste it and use it for photos but the papaya was not very ripe so the drink did not have much flavor. So overall a flop.

The African Benne Wafers were delicious! I definitely want to make them again. They are thin wafers with the main ingredients being toasted sesame seeds, butter, brown sugar and egg. Crispy and sweet with the flavor of toasted sesame. They reminded me of the little sesame candies but even better. In trying not to eat so many, I put them in the freezer, but they are just as delicious frozen!

Chad is divided into three main geographic zones – the steamy Sahara desert in the north, the central Savannah, and the semi-tropical south. Lake Chad is a freshwater lake that lies mostly in the country of Chad and Chad is a local word that means “expanse of water” (aka Lake). Lake Chad shrank by as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998. Chad has over 200 people groups and 100 different dialects. Most of the northern tribes are pastoral, moving from location to location to support the grazing needs of their herds. Whereas southern Chadians are agrarian and commercial based. The oil boom in the 1970s increased the overall quality of life for most people in Chad.

Central Africa has 30 main rivers. Les Chutes de Boali are beautiful waterfalls in Central Africa. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. Unfortunately they have experienced a lot of political turmoil. Due to the Bangui magnetic anomaly, possibly caused by a meteor impact, compasses do not work in the western half of Central Africa.

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