Orlando, Fla. – Whenever I think of eating in Africa, I remember a valuable lesson I learned about eating overseas. Just because something tastes bad doesn’t make it bad. One man’s chateaubriand is another man’s raw sea urchin.
I discovered this once while traveling through Tanzania. I came across some Masai tribesmen who offered me one of their diet staples: cow’s blood mixed with milk inside a gourd. I tipped my head back, poured some in my mouth, took one swallow and gagged.
The tribesmen howled. I, in turn, gave them one of my diet staples. One put it in his mouth, took one swallow and gagged. The other tribesmen howled.
It was a PowerBar.
So I have remained very open-minded about food, particularly in Africa, which has a terrific variety – not all of it good. Egypt has the worst food of any country I’ve visited. That may have had something to do with my budget of $5 a day, but I found that was plenty to eat well in Morocco. My favorite restaurant in the world remains the Carnivore Café in Nairobi.
To my surprise, you don’t have to travel all the way to Africa and put up with unbearable heat, annoying children and schlocky souvenir stands to taste African food. You can do all that at Disney World.
I recently used Orlando as a base for a 10-day tour of the South in covering the opening weekend of the college football season. Tired of biscuits and gravy and seeing way too many Waffle Houses in my rear-view mirror, I turned to Disney World for an idea of something different.
A bubbly PR woman told me about the African-theme lodge on the Disney property. Let’s see, African food and Disney. That’s a more frightening combination than cow’s blood and milk.
First of all, I don’t like Disney World, Disneyland or even the Disney Channel. People are too bubbly. Lines are longer than at most border crossings. The food wouldn’t make the cut at the Pigs Knuckle County Fair. The last thing I wanted was my couscous delivered to me by Goofy in a caftan.
But Disney advertises magic, and it magically makes African food a wonderful experience.
The Animal Kingdom Lodge is a sprawling 33-acre hotel featuring 30 species of wild animals in the savannah outside the walls. Its lobby is decorated with carved wooden tables and chandeliers made from Masai shields tied together under a thatched roof 40 feet high.
One floor below, past a fountain dribbling down a rock wall, are Boma, the lodge’s African buffet, and Jiko, the high-
end African restaurant. The hostess at Jiko (which means cooking place in Swahili) told me she came from South Africa and was recruited by Disney out of hotel management school. The entire restaurant wait staff is African.
Ten minutes after sitting down, you have a tough time believing you’re in central Florida. African designs grace round room dividers holding iron wine racks with African motifs. The black roof, soft lighting and steady beat of African drums and African songs make you feel as if you’re at a campsite on the Ngorongoro Crater.
The advantage of having an African wait staff is they are experts at explaining dishes and coupling them with the largest South African wine collection in the U.S. My server suggested I try the Taste of Africa appetizer, which was the best breadbasket I’ve ever had.
There was flaxseed naan bread, similar to Indian naan but much thicker. Also, I had whole wheat lavosh, a lusciously sweet brown bread, and papadam, a paper-thin toasted cracker perfect for dipping in the kalamata olive hummus, Malayan spinach-lentil dip and the Moroccan chermoula.
I ate the entire breadbasket before they brought out their most authentic dish. Keep in mind the dishes on the one-page menu, with a beautiful artsy watercolor design, aren’t truly authentic. They are more like American dishes with African spices and sauces.
But nowhere else in America can I find seared jumbo scallops with golden brown mealie pap and spicy tomato-onion chaka-
laka. They were four golf-ball-sized scallops above the chaka-laka, a tasty doughy base from South Africa, surrounded by spicy tomatoes and onions.
Coupled with a 2004 Mulderbosch, a South African sauvignon blanc, it made me wonder what I was doing with only a $5-a-day budget in Egypt.
“We are creating our menus based on the heritage of Africa, the immigration, geography or history and also on the cooking from tribal origins,” said Anette Grecchi, the Swiss-born head chef. “From that aspect, it’s authentic. You don’t find one of our dishes in restaurants there.”
In what she calls a “life-altering trip,” Grecchi spent 10 days at the InterContinental Sandton Sun and Towers outside Johannesburg in 1999, in celebration of the 25-year anniversary of the South African Chef Association. She visited Soweto. Lived in the bush. Hung out with the cooks.
She has also been all over North Africa but admits never having tried cow’s blood.
“I am not good for ‘Fear Factor,”‘ she said.
But she knows African tastes and sensibilities. Jiko’s menu has no meats from the African savannahs. Also, nowhere do you find PowerBars.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
