Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - On the Indecisive Man and Menus

one of my wife's favorite dishes in Yaounde was called Un Peu de Tout.  which means, a bit of everything. it was fundamentally rice and beans with veggies. and it was quite good.

sounds like the dish for you moses

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2023 9:52 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - On the Indecisive Man and Menus

 

Getting away from the depressingly serious terrain of politics and political economy, here, on a lighthearted note, is my Facebook update from last night. It's a random, scattered, almost stream-of-consciousness reflection on menus, cuisines, and people of indecisive culinary disposition.

On the Indecisive Man and Menus

By Moses E. Ochonu

Some of us struggle with decision making, especially when it comes to what we eat.

When I first came to America, l loved going out to eat but I hated the first few minutes at a restaurant when the waiter would hand you the culinary encyclopedia they call the menu.

The worst is when the waiter returns to ask you if you've made your choice when you're still on the first page of a multi-page menu trying to make sense of what you're seeing. That's a lot of pressure.

I would be paralyzed with indecision. If American menus do not shock and intimidate you as a newly arrived immigrant in America, nothing in this country will.

No, you can't just ask them what they have and order something from a handful of meals they announce to you as we do in Nigeria. If you ask them what's available, you'd get referred back to the menu.

You can ask the waiter about things that catch your eye or words that are alien to your foreign ears, but you'd still make the decision by yourself.

You can ask the waiter if they'd recommend their favorite but expect him/her to out-Naija you and turn your request/question into a question: "what do you like" or "what do you typically eat"?

In my third decade in America, I can't say I've completely overcome my phobia for American menus. I've only shortened and simplified my decision making by narrowing the choice, regardless of the restaurant type, to a few staples. I just build out from or upon those staples.

Even when I visit Nigeria nowadays, the menus at some of the fancy places can be a bit overwhelming.

The only mitigating factor in Nigeria is that even in the most gentrified eateries, the menu is usually more of an artifact for show, a crude, annoying mimicry of the Western restaurant menu, than it is a functional guide to what's on offer. Usually, half of the items are unavailable. To some people, this is disappointing. To indecisive people like us it is a blessing, for it makes our decision making easier.

My indecision extends to the culinary experience itself and is not not just the typical inability to decide between choices on offer. Most times it is because I hate either-or propositions that require a clear, unequivocal choice between two or more options. Why can't I have them both? Why do I have to choose?

Thankfully, both here and in Nigeria, restaurants now have creative ways of accommodating our indecision. They're increasingly open to the mixing and matching that us indecisive people like to make.

When I go to a Thai, Indian, or Chinese restaurant, I ask them to add chicken to the seafood option and they usually oblige partly because the chicken costs extra and makes them more money. I like seafood but I also like chicken and often hate to choose one or the other.

I've been known to commit the sacrilege of asking if it would be possible to add meat to attractive vegetarian items on a menu.

Sometimes, sensing my indecision, a waiter might ask if I want both options or samples of multiple options, to which I would enthusiastically answer yes and secretly thank her/him for saving me from my misery of indecision.

I feel like Nigerian cuisine is more flexible and receptive to the plural tastes of indecisive people. If you can't decide between Okro soup and Ogbono, you can have Okro/Ogbono soup.

Many Nigerian restaurants offer "mix" soup options. There is a recipe for Ogbono-egusi soup—one of my personal favorites, especially if it is enriched with bitter leaf.

Can't decide between rice and beans? Well, why do you have to choose when you can have both rice and beans, a Nigerian staple, together?

Having trouble deciding between different animal proteins? Nigerian cuisine has you covered with "assorted."

In Nigerian cuisine, there's nothing wrong with mixing carbs or proteins. If you want yam and rice in one meal, they'll accommodate your request. Even when it comes to "swallow," you can request both semo and garri. No problem. As long as you're paying.

Nigeria is the indecisive eater's habitat. American culinary culture puts too much pressure on you to be decisive and shames you if you're not.

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