At the end of October when I was in Abidjan I went out with some old friends and had some attiéké. Last week I spent most of my time at the media office in Abidjan working so I decided to grab some attiéké from a joint across the street every day for lunch.
Attiéké is a dish native to the Ivory Coast that is made from ground, fermented cassava. It is quite inexpensive. In fact, for lunch I was paying about 25 cents for a huge plate of attiéké with onions and hot peppers. Then about 60 cents for two pieces of fried fish. Now that is some cheap fast food!
I have been blessed with good health during my travels when I eat “street food.” I do try be a bit careful when I choose what I eat.
I try to avoid meat that may have been sitting out a while and I don’t drink unfiltered water. When ordering things like this I ask them to toss my fish back in the hot oil to heat it up. That usually serves to kill some germs. Hopefully the fish I ate wasn’t from the Abidjan lagoon – I don’t think any amount of hot oil would protect me from that.
