raw chicken and beans

The sky is a shade of bluish gray that I’ve never seen before. I can see it from my window, and I have no intention of getting up to get a better look. I’ve spent most the day in bed, and when I wasn’t in bed, I was making bean soup. Feijao is the only Mozambican food that I can make successfully, because it’s almost criminal how easy it is to make; soak beans, add sautéed onions and tomatoes, add curry and salt, forget about it for a while, and voile - soup. I excel at all foods that require you to forget that they’re still on the burner. Since I don’t have the heart to kill the live chickens that they sell in the market (or carry them from the market to my house, for that matter), I’ll be eating a lot of beans.

If I ever need a chicken fix, there’s a café in Gurúe that sells the best frango (edible chicken) that I’ve ever tasted. It takes so long to get that I swear they start with galinhas (live chickens) in back. It is, in essence, a chicken cut perfectly in half and then roasted until delicious. In Mozambique, they aren’t ashamed that their food used to be alive. Yesterday, when I was walking through the market, I saw a stand that had two goat’s heads displayed next to some unidentifiable organs, presumably goat organs. It was so wholly unappetizing, but at least it was displayed in a vaguely artistic way instead of gracelessly on hooks like in Egypt. I may never refer to goat heads in same way again in my life, and I’m comfortable with that.