Ivory Coast Avocado Boats: Bateaux d'Avocat de Côte d'Ivoire aux Crevettes

In the latter part of the 1400s, the Portuguese seem to have been the first known Europeans to land in the area that is now Côte d'Ivoire, but the French and Dutch soon made appearances too. Over time the French established trading posts and even had a military presence in the overall region of that part of West Africa; and indeed, Ivory Coast became an official French colony in the late 1880s, but in the early part of the 1900s, the French colonial possessions in West Africa were combined into a large French colonial entity called the "Federation of French West Africa," but commonly just called "French West Africa." It wasn't until the summer of 1960 that Côte d'Ivoire became an independent nation with French being the official language, although numerous African languages are spoken there in every day life.

 

You want ripe, and thus, somewhat softened avocados (not mushy), so that they will be nice and creamy. Avocados are a pretty commonly grown food product in Côte d'Ivoire, and they are used in various types of recipes. Further, I garnished this dish here with cashew halves, because Côte d'Ivoire also grows and exports lots of cashews. 

Ingredients (6 appetizers or light lunches):

3 ripe avocados, halved and pitted

1 to 2 tablespoons lime juice

8 to 10 medium cleaned cooked shrimp, cut into halves or thirds

1/2 cup chopped fresh pineapple

1 teaspoon hot sauce + 1 teaspoon ketchup

3 to 4 tablespoons mayonnaise (low fat type is fine)  

good pinch of ground black pepper

good pinch of salt

garnish each serving with a few cashew halves

Either buy cooked shrimp, or cook the shrimp yourself. I simply sauteed raw cleaned/peeled shrimp in some butter and olive oil. If you cook the shrimp yourself, let the shrimp cool, then cut them in half or thirds, then put them into a bowl along with the chopped fresh pineapple, mayonnaise, hot sauce/ketchup, a good sprinkle of lime juice, black pepper and salt. Mix well to coat the shrimp and pineapple with the dressing. Cover the dish and refrigerate the shrimp for a couple of hours, then ... Rinse the avocados, dry them, cut them in half and pit them. Rub the cut side of the halves with some of the lime juice to prevent the avocados from browning (oxidizing; that is, browning from exposure to oxygen). Top the avocado halves with the shrimp/pineapple mixture and after you have plated the halves for serving, you can add a little more of the shrimp mixture on the side of the avocado, if you'd like (I didn't do that for the photos below). Garnish with a few cashews. 

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Quaint-This adjective is related to "cognizance" and "acquaint," Latin derived words borrowed by English from French, and to "know" and "can" (the verb), words from the Germanic roots of English. "Quaint" goes back to Indo European "gnoh," which meant, "to have knowledge;" thus, "to know." This gave Latin "gnoscere" ("to know"), which had the prefix form "co" (meaning "with, together")^ attached, providing Latin with "cognocere," which meant, "to get to know;" thus, "to recognize, to get or to become acquainted with." One of the participle forms was "cognitus," meaning, "known, recognized, approved, acknowledged," and this passed into Latin-based Old French as "cointe," but also as, "queinte," meaning, "knowledgeable, clever, highly informed;" thus also used to mean "proud, gracious," which then was used figuratively to mean "arrogant." English borrowed the word around 1200 as "cwoynte/quoynte/cwointe," which then became "queynte," before the modern spelling. The word's meanings have changed numerous times, perhaps not surprisingly because of its positive and negative meanings at times, as like with "proud" and "arrogant," but also "knowledgeable" and "cunningly deceitful." The idea of "knowledge" gave it the meaning of "skillful and well made," but later "unusual," and then "unusually old fashioned" in the 1700s, which eventually graduated to "having old fashioned charm," where it has remained to this day, with the other meanings having become archaic, at best.     

^ Depending upon the spelling of the Latin word to which it was attached as a prefix, the spelling could be "co, con, com," all of which go back to Indo European "kom," with nuanced meanings like "with, along, together, nearby, beside"). The form in Germanic was "ga/ge," a form that began to morph and then "pretty much" die out in its English form in the late Middle English period into the modern era (I say "pretty much" to give myself some wiggle room for some words that might still be around with that form, although they may be little used). A previous example in English was "gebeorg" (a mountain, a hill) and its German cousin "Gebirge" ("a mountain range," in the singular sense, but also the same spelling is used for plural; so, "mountain ranges"), a form still in use in German, which has retained a lot of nouns with the "Ge" prefix.