What's Mozam-cooking! A Photo Essay

First you take the peanuts and you smash them, you smash them.

 Our Maes taught us how to make a traditional Mozambiquean dish.

Then you take the coconuts and you break them, you break them.

This is my Mae explaining how to open the coconut.  Did you know that coconuts hiss when you open them?

Then you take the coconuts (again?) and you scrape them, you scrape them.

 2 out of 3 Maes approve of my coconut scraping.

Cut the head off the chicken.

I actually missed the chicken-mataring.  I guess none of my classmates wanted to make the actual cut.  Then we were too slow with the de-feathering so my Mae took over.  Some people eat the head.  We didn't.

Abandon the classroom.

Fry the onions.  Grill the chicken.

After the traditional dish was finished we started "teaching" our Maes how to cook an American dish.

Peel EVERYTHING.  Peel ALL the tomatoes.

Voila.  Spaghetti??

We tried to make spaghetti with meat sauce but ... it turned into a meat-sauce with a little tomatoes in it.  We couldn't just go to the store and buy a can of tomatoes, and I guess tomatoes are expensive now.  We added some other vegetables.  It turned out okay but I wouldn't call it spaghetti sauce.