Alloco: Côte d’Ivoire’s Sweet "French Fry"

So I just left work for our 3 hour lunch break. Since I didn’t take my meat out of the freezer to defreeze earlier, I will not be eating a wholesome, fulfilling meal soon. Thus, in the interim, I will have a snack and I thought I’d share it with you. Well kind of.  It’s called alloco. Alloco is a dish of fried bananas but they’re not the kind of bananas that you and I are used to in the United States. These bananas are actually sweet plantains. People here eat alloco like we eat French fries. You can have it as a snack, as an appetizer, or even as a meal but normally people have it in between meals as a snack. You know, Cote d’Ivoire doesn’t have a fast food culture like ours so there’s no going to anyone’s drive thru and ordering alloco! Sure, you can find it any one of their “maquis” (small restaurants) but I never order it. I prefer to prepare it myself. I buy the bananas and make alloco at home. You can buy around 10 -12 bananas for about 50 cents.

Alloco is really tasty. This is how you prepare it:

1) You wash the bananas while they’re still in the skin. Normally, two big bananas is one good, large serving for one person.
2) You peel them and then cut them into mouth-size bites.
3) You deep fry them in oil (palm oil is most often used here) until they are golden brown.
4) Voila! A nice sweet snack that will fill you up! Some people eat it with bread but as for me, I never do as I am not a big starch fan and eating bananas with bread is like eating two starches together. A no-no for this veggie/meat-o-vore!