However, the preparation process is quite different and therein lies the cultural experience. Shopping in Nouadhibou Nouadhibou has a couple modest supermarkets but by modest I mean equal to one aisle in a modern American convenience store. Since most of the goods are imported by sea or air, they are often too expensive for our food budget. So the Unit and I join the early morning crowd in the native market to get the ingredients we need for our cook shift. Likewise, vegetables and fruit are easily had although, lacking French, we frequently resort to scratching numbers on the ground to negotiate prices.
Fresh meat is a challenge.
Let me describe a typical third world, open-air butcher shop. It is usually an unpainted shack made of scrap wood and corrugated tin. The counter consists of a couple darkly-stained boards waist or chest high. In the center of the counter is a large, old-fashioned scale with its collection of kilogram weights. The nicer places have a chopping block, also darkly stained.