Expat Mama Recommends...

Today’s recommendation is: search for the spices! When I first came to Congo for a longer term stay, I had no idea how to find any kind of seasoning besides salt and artificial seasoning powder that’s kind of like boullion cubes.

However, as the days pass I have gotten better at figuring out how to track down the spices I might want. Since my days of salt-only food, I have since been able to incorporate black pepper, ginger and nutmeg, among others. I hope to find cinnamon locally as well at some point, but for now I’m still scooping through my self-imported container. I used to assume that all Congo had was salt and I'd just have to deal with it and pack in the necessary seasonings. Thankfully that is not actually true.

One of the reasons the search for spices has been difficult is that I don’t get out to the market much, and I also don’t know the French names for what I might want. Many spices and seasonings are sold in unlabeled little plastic containers so it’s hard to figure out what they are when you don’t know the word for them. Anyway, my recommendation is that you just keep searching for spices and don’t assume your host country doesn’t have it. It might be somewhere high up on a very dusty shelf at the back of the store.