Chakula

Ingredients:

Tomatoes, sugar, salt, vinegar, citric acid, spices and stabilizers.

If any American (and more specifically, Pittsburgher) had to guess the identity of this food product, my assumption would be a Heinz knock-off.

In Kenya, this is simply Tomato Sauce. It comes in a container like ketchup. It smells like ketchup. It looks like ketchup save for the eerie pinkish hue. It doesn’t taste anywhere as good as ketchup, but I would put it on my French fries.

I wouldn’t put it on my pasta.

Yesterday, when I asked my roommate to pick up some tomato sauce (he needed to run a few errands), I was being naïve. I had bought some pasta at the Italian Supermarket and was looking forward to some comfort food. By the time he came back, I was ravenously hungry. I heard him coming in the door and I immediately put a pot of water on to boil. Then he unveiled the queen to pasta’s king—a clear, plastic bottle of watered-down tomato and vinegar mishmash.

I was dumbfounded for a minute, but realized that the container said in black and white—“Peptang Tomato Sauce.” Not Peptano—Peptang. It doesn’t even try to pass for anything Italian. I laughed and explained my blunder to my roommate. It then occurred to me:

“What is the strangest food that you have ever eaten?”

“The noodles that you cooked last week.” (I had cooked a makeshift pasta dish with noodles, onions, peppers, tomatoes, olive oil and cheese).

I guess I was being stupid and privileged, or a lot of both. My roommate had never stepped foot in a restaurant other than one of the Kenyan persuasion. I than realized how blessed we truly are to have the options of a varied diet.

I told my roommate about this—in America, there are different types of restaurants that represent different ethnic cuisines. I then told him that in the biggest city in the country—NYC—there was not one Kenyan restaurant. He wasn’t disturbed by this, saying: “I should open one there, there has to be a market!” (He studied tourism and restaurant management in college.)

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t think that many Americans would enjoy the cuisine here. But, he said that there are many Kenyans in America that probably would like some home cooking. That makes sense. With that being said, here is a quick run-down of what I’ve been eating. There is not much variety, so I eat many of the same foods over and over:

1.) Rice: it is served with everything. Once a day I will eat a lot of rice. Usually, it is served with one of the following: potatoes, beans, collards, or a lentil-like protein. These foods are called Sukuma Wiki (a vegtable stew with rice which means “to stretch the week”), or Pilau. They include lots of spices, such as pillipilli (spicy chili). Wali is rice boiled in coconut milk and is common along the coast. It is usually served with fish.

2.) Ungali- My most loathed Kenyan food. This is a tasteless and odorless millet flour. It is served with stew, meat, fish, or greens. A solid, heavy form of water that merely sits in your stomach.

3.) Maandazi- this is a good one: deep-fried dough usually served with beans or coffee. It is like a donut without sugar covering the outside.

4.) Samosa- a very good deep-fried, triangular-shaped, meat-filled, hyphenatedly-described snack. Similar to an egg roll.

5.) Chapati- my favorite lunch or dinner food. A (you guessed it!) deep-fried flat bread that is usually served with spiced goat or beef (I prefer beef).

6.) Chai- a very sugary milk tea. This is delicious and is taken at 10AM at school every day. I like this a lot… but it is so damn hot outside that it is hard to enjoy.

7.) Biriani- this is a meat-based (usually chicken or goat) dish with a sour, chili tomato sauce on top. The taste is difficult to describe. Served with (you guessed it again!) rice.

8.) Last but not least, Uji. Uji is a porridge made from fermented millet or corn flour mix. It has an incredibly thick consistency with chunks of grain and a semi-sweet taste. The consistency is difficult to get past. I was served this at a home… and it took me forever to drink (to turn it away would have been extremely rude).

Kenyans drink a ton of juice, too. I love the freshly squeezed orange (the oranges are green on the outside here) or mango juice… or a combination of the two. Add some avocado to that mix and it is also delicious. Similar to other developing nations, the soda is better here, too. They have a soda named “Stoney” and it is a ginger-based drink… but you can actually taste the ginger in your throat. The soft drinks are made with real cane sugar (instead of corn syrup), and it truly makes a difference. And they are served in glass bottles that are returned to the seller—awesome.

Alright, that is far too much for now. Will talk about teaching soon.

Signing off,

Adam