Making Breakfast in Bamako

Sometimes you wake up yearning for some hash browns, fried eggs, french toast, pork roll. You wish there was a IHOP around the corner, even a waffle house, hell I'd take a huddle house at this point. But things like that don't exist here. Apart from the ubiquitous fried egg stand (eggs fried in a lot of oil served on bread), these types of breakfast spots just aren't available. So you are left with your gas stove, the corner store, and your cooking savvy to try to recreate an American favorite.

A note on corner stores: Bamako has the African equivalent of Bodegas - they are everywhere and they all sell the same things. They are usually dingy, one room operations with tin roofs and for the longest time I was like how do any of them sell anything (since they all sell them same stuff) and what are they actually selling anyway? This is before I started living and cooking here. I realized that you can get almost anything there: butter, sugar, oil, eggs, cold cokes, cookies, tape, bleach, the list goes on and on.

Here is my fabulous morning creation:

Ingredients:
Drissa goes to corner store to purchase - eggs, butter, french bread, and milk. I had some stuff in my fancy refrigerator!: halal beef sausage cut into thin slices, Malian honey, nescafe, sweet and condensed milk, water, ice.

Directions:
Mix honey (lots) with 2 tablespoons of butter (pre cut and measured by corner store) and put in a cup. Place the plastic cup somewhere with full sun exposure - on a ledge, in a tree, etc. Wait for honey and butter to melt together.

Pull gas stove from the back mini-courtyard to front courtyard. Turn on gas and light stove. Put beef slices onto skillet with salt and pepper. Heat until a little bit burned. Remove from skillet and put on a plate; cover with another plate so the flies don't attack it. Take skillet to outdoor faucet and wash by hand using soap and a piece of a rice sack.

Crack 5 eggs into bowl. Pour in plastic sachet of milk. Cut french bread into small thin slices. Submerge approx 6 in egg/milk mixture. Turn on gas stove and heat skillet. Move slices from bowl to skillet - heat until brownish. Take off skillet put on a plate and cover from flies. Repeat procedure with new slices.

Retrieve honey/butter mixture from tree or sunning spot. If its over 100 - it will have melted; if less than 100 - you may have to mix together with a fork. Divide beef slices and french toast between two plates. Cover french toast with honey/butter mixture. Voila French toast and pseudo spam.

Pour ice into two glasses. Pour a teaspoon of nescafe into each glass. Put a teaspoon of sweet and condensed milk in each glass. Cover with water. Stir with a fork. Voila iced coffee.

(Warning: my french toast creation, while delicious - looked nowhere near as delicate and precious as the breakfast food featured in this post's picture).