Posts Tagged With: Abba

Chadian Breakfeast

LA BOUILLIE
(Hot Cereal)

INGREDIENTS

4 cups water (1 additional cup later)
1 cup ground rice or wheat flour
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon corn flour, wheat flour, or rice
1 cup water
⅓ cup milk
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 12 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add 4 cups water to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Gradually add rice, stirring all the while. While 4 cups water comes to boil, add peanut butter, corn flour, and 1 cup water to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until blended. Once 4 cups water are boiling, add peanut butter/corn flour mix to pot. Mix with fork or whisk until completely blended and the cereal has reached your desired level of thickness. Stir frequently. Remove from heat. Add milk, lemon juice and sugar. Stir with whisk until completely blended.

TIDBITS

1) Abba “Willie” Aouzou, a prosperous date merchant in Abademi, Chad, loved American country music. His one, true dream was to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. While his fellow tribesmen sang traditional songs of their camel caravaning days, Abba sang the songs of Willie Nelson. While his neighbors ate couscous and quaffed hibiscus, Abba “Willie” Aouzou ate Texas chili and drank beer. The only thing he had in common with the folks around him was the Arabic language and a love of hot breakfast cereal.

2) Still, Abba’s love of beer proved an endless source of friction. “Willie, our beliefs forbid us to the drink alcohol.” Willie always replied, “But I have to drink beer. How else can I write a song about how my wife stole my pickup truck to run off with my best friend, the whiskey salesmen.”

3) In 1972, “Willie” Aouzou wrote about sharing a big bowl of chili with Willie Nelson. The song shot to the top of the North African country music charts. The Grand Ole Opry invited him to perform. He got a standing ovation. Secure in his success, Abba gave up beer and began writing twangy songs that fused honky tonk with the spirit of the Saharan caravans. Nashville went wild for him. A rising Swedish pop band named itself Abba in homage to him. His home town of Fi’ad, Chad went crazy as well, naming a hot breakfast cereal after him, “La Bouillie.” La Bouillie is nearly an anagram for his first hit, “Willie’s Bowl.” because there are a lot of wordsmiths in Fi’ad.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.