hmmm

So, I accidently had tongue for lunch today.

I went to Chez Niani, a café down the street that I often go to for lunch. Malagasy food consists of a) vary (rice), and b) laoka (stuff that goes with rice - i.e. veggies or meat, usually not sauce). Chez Niani has Malagsy food as well as a vazaha menu (chicken, meat, eggs, fries etc). I wanted Malagasy food, so I asked what the laokas of the day were. My waitress spoke super quietly, so I heard mostly unintelligible mumbling, possibly mostly in Malagasy, and then petit pois (peas) jumped out. I said I'd have the petit pois thing with rice. I've had rice dishes there before, and often just ask for whatever doesn't have meat (usually lima beans and tomatoes - quite good actually). Today I figured that I wouldn't mind some meat, so even though I didn't hear her say 'langue' as she was describing the specials, I figured that I would wind up with peas and some sort of meat with my rice.

Indeed, a big bowl of rice and a plate full of peas with some slices of meat on top arrived. I cut up the meat a little and started putting the meat and peas over my rice. The meat was a little like the beef that goes in beef stew only quite a bit softer. I didn't mind it. I'm still getting used to meat (chicken is easier, but there's not much good chicken here - most of the chickens are running around eating garbage, so they're pretty thin), so I didn't exactly love it, but it was ok. When I went back to the plate to cut up a little more meat to put into the mix, I noticed one of the pieces. It had what really really looked like tastebuds on the skin on one side. After closer examination, I decided that it was indeed tongue. I ate a little more of it (just not the tastebuds part), and most of the peas. When I went up to pay, the woman repeated what was on my bill to make sure it was mine, and she said, "un café, du riz, et de la langue et des petits pois". Yup, it was tongue. Good news: the tongue meal plus a packet of vanilla wafer like cookies cost about 2 dollars and 10 cents.