THE PROBLEM OF PEPPER IN CAMEROON`S SOUTH WEST REGION

The South West Region is, no doubt, endowed with a lot of natural resources.  These include the Korup Rain Forest which is a world class reference; the huge plantations that were put in place by the Germans; the Old German buildings that still exist and are still being used; Debunscha, the wettest place in Africa, SONARA the National Oil Refinery, and the sumptuous and luscious sea whose waters come quite close to the boundary with Presbook.

These endowments are weighty enough to make foreigners want to flock to the Region.  They are also wondrous enough to make Cameroonians from other parts of the country to want to visit the region.

However, for the region to cash in on these assets there is a serious problem it must address.  It is that of the widespread use of pepper in cooking.  In the region, there seems to be an unwritten rule by which every cooking, including that intended for sale to the public, must be peppered.  In fact, peppering food in the region has become the unwritten rule.

This  is the case in Buea, in Muea, in Mutengene, in Tiko and in Limbe as I have noticed over the years, which is not to say that the phenomenon is not equally rife in the other towns of the region that are not named. 

When one asks a food vendor whether they do not think that peppering food arbitrarily puts off visitors – so to speak, that is, non-pepper eating visitors who would have loved to have a meal out, the answer is: “There is no way you can cook food and not put pepper in it.”

“Why not”, you then may ask. The answer is that if you don’t put pepper in the food, nobody will buy it.  If you then want to know why they don’t instead provide pepper in a separate bowl without necessarily “poisoning” the entire quantity of food with it, the answer is that the taste will not be the same.

Go on then and say that in the North West Region, pepper is not so arbitrarily “forced down the throat of customers”, so to speak, then you are e told, “This is not the North West”.

Even so, I strongly believe that there is some need to find common ground between food providers and their customers in the South West.  If this is not done, food vendors will continue to lose out on those non pepper eating customers who otherwise, have readily sat down for a good meal. But then again, perhaps I`m also exaggerating.