There Are No Ovens in Madagascar, and Other Mysteries

The picture shown is of our humble little kitchen, showing all the applianced we have to work with (with the exception of our tiny Toshiba fridge, which was behind me when I took the shot). The little camp stove has two working burners, and is attached to a little propane tank (cost of a full tank is a little over 40,000 Ariary). We have a set of low-quality (the screws sometimes come loost and the handles fall off – very dangerous!) pots and pans of varying sizes, which, ironically, came in a box with the slogan “Ideas and innovations for luxurious lifestyles.”

Everyone in Madagascar either works with a gas tank and camp stove or cooks outdoors on coals or open fires.

But back to the point of this post: There are no ovens in Madagascar.

How is that possible? you ask. After all, there is bread: cheap little baguettes sold on the street for 250 Ariary a piece. Where does it come from? This is a mystery to us as well. Is there some central location with one giant oven from which all of the bread in town comes? Apparently, yes – by the Soafia Club (where we went out dancing – see previous post) there is a huge central bakery where all the bread you see sold in Fianar, from the humblest street vendor to the most overpriced vazaha restaurant, is baked.

We’ve also heard talk of something called a four malgache (“Malagasy oven”), but we’re not exactly sure what that is, or if anyone has one in their home (as we’ve yet to see one).

One day Francesca and I were doing some shopping in town at Supermarché 3000 and decided to stop into Clair de Lune, a tiny pastry shop and café in the same area as the supermarché, Le Panda, and Chez Dom (vazaha central, if you recall). If you came across Clair de Lune in the US, you’d think it was a pretty rinky-dink little place, but by Malagasy standards (and prices) it’s quite swanky. We ogled the French-style pastries behind the glass: croissants, pain au chocolat, brioches, viennoiseries. They even had a tiny little freezer where they served house-made gelato.

We looked over their menu, and suddenly, a craving came over me – I had to have pizza. That instant. After weeks of cooking at home with no protein but the occasional egg, my body needed cheese. So we sat down and decided to treat ourselves to lunch out. We ordered the pizza margherita (as it was the only vegetarian option) to share, and were told that it would take about 20 minutes. No problem, I was prepared to wait.

We sat at our little table people-watching out the window, until twenty minutes later, a huge SUV pulled up outside. To our surprise, our waitress ran out and the driver passed her a little pizza box through his window. She came back inside and disappears into the back of the shop.

A minute later she returns with our pizza, plated on a tray. By US standards it was a sorry-looking thing: it actually looked like a bad microwave pizza! Did she place a call soon after we ordered for someone somewhere to microwave a pizza and deliver it to the restaurant? Who knows!

But hey, I was hungry, and amused by the whole situation, so the bad microwave pizza and the laughs were well worth the 8,000 Ariary (~$4)!