My daughter-in-law Sarah just wrote describing her birthday cupcakes, black forest with molten amaretto filling, and I tell you it pierced my heart. I love Africa, I must, I spend enough time here. But there are times when I wish I had fallen in love with a country with tastier cuisine.
This is an amazing place, the people, scenery, music, animals, colors and customs are astounding in their beauty and variety. So why is it that the staple food is a lump of starch that resembles a tumor the size and shape of a grapefruit. Truthfully, the tumor would have more flavor.
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Note the forked metal tool braced against the pot. Without this, the pot would fall over. |
Ugali. Every country has their favorite starch, and until I came to Africa, I had not met a carb I couldn't love with all my heart. But I've met my match, starchwise. It has NO TASTE, none whatsoever, and it doesn't move or smell either, it just lies there. If you made cream of wheat with one third the required liquid you could approximate its texture. If you fashioned a ball of laundry starch,you might approximate its taste.
Yet 95% of Tanzanians eat ugali at least once a day, sometimes twice. They swear by it, saying they won't feel full until they've had their daily allotment, and this is where it starts to make sense. We all want to leave the table feeling full and satisfied, wherever we live. But this is a poor country, and most people eat only one meal each day. So they eat an enormous globe of ugali, and walk away happy until the next day. And it does last until the next meal, trust me, I've eaten it. Sometimes there's beans, usually some greens, but only rarely is there meat. It's just too expensive.
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Ugali powder is added until it becomes thick, even thicker than this. |
Dagaa, however, is dirt cheap, and if given the choice I would eat the dirt. I've mentioned dagaa, the tiny dried fish that looks like little silver nails. Unlike ugali, it does have a taste, and a smell, neither of which is in any way appealing. My friend Carmen is a nurse on the pediatric ward. Originally, she's from Cuba, and has been here about twenty ears. She won't eat either one, and says ugali no tienes sabor ( has no taste). She won't even talk about dagaa. I went by her house today and she gave me some rice and a kind of Cuban marinara sauce with beef and pork. Muy delicioso.
Carmen speaks Kiswahili fluently, and Spanish, of course, and has some English. I am fluent only in English, but have some Spanish and Kiswahili. I'd forgotten my Spanish, it was replaced by Kiswahili. So she's helping me to resurrect my Espanol, and we speak this weird mix of the three. Folks here in Berega don't quite know what to make of it, but I'm happy to be relearning my Spanish, because I think my next trip may be to Honduras, or Panama, someplace with a never ending supply of tortillas and mangoes.
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Carmen, who hates ugali, and Mama Dani, who probably eats it every day. Carmen is cleaning rice, which we buy complete little rocks. But it's a good way to sit and talk. |
I'm fortunate sana that I have enough money to avoid the foods I dislike, most people here don't have that option, and are just happy to be eating. It's the basic poverty diet, mostly starch, few vegetables, very little calcium and protein, the same thing, day in and day out. Because of the lack of water, farmers grow only essentials, so there's no fruit grown here. Our river here is bone dry, which is scary for everyone.
You know, I'll eat. I'll just go to Morogoro to buy what I need. The folks here can't do that, and December and January are lean months. The call it the hungry time. Apparently it's gotten worse every year, mostly due to global warming, which they don't even know about, and certainly haven't caused. So in December and January there will be only ugali, and possibly not much of that. If a farmer can't grow his food, then he must buy it, but he won't have money to do this because he depends on his harvest for money.
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| Bananas, which we don't have in Berega. |
What's amazing is that everyone here just carries on. Kids play, people work, their bodies having adapted to the environment. One day I was at the lab and Magadula showed me the blood work log and I'm here to tell you that most people in Berega are anemic. Anemic, malnourished, poor, and every day they get up and get busy. If asked, they talk about about their problems, but without whining. These are just the facts of their lives.
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Food displayed by the roadside, in much larger quantities than in Berega. |
Certainly the women do a great majority of the work, and they accept that as just maisha (life). My feeling is life's a crap shoot, we're where we are because 1) it's the hand we've been dealt or 2) Mungu akipenda (if God wishes). But as I watch village life I'm aware that I could have been Aissa or Mary, fetching maji, farming maize, trying to feed too many kids with too little money. And I'm grateful that if and when I want to, I can leave. I may never leave, or if I do it will be to someplace like this, but I have the choice. It's the idea of no choices that scares me. Life choices, food choices, work choices.
But back to food. In America I rarely cook,I don't have to. There's so much to choose from, the menus get longer and longer every year. Usually I wait till the waitress comes and pick something. I never pick liver, but most everything is ok with me. They love liver here, and kidneys and eyes. No picky eaters in Berega. I've gotten pretty good at cooking greens in coconut milk (the powdered kind from Morogoro). Homemade coconut milk is way too labor intensive. Curry is easy as well, and my potato curry is great. I eat pretty well here, better than in America, where I usually head straight for the greasy/ salty end of the buffet.
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| And pumpkins, along the road to Dodoma, outside Berega. |
I like to share food with my friends, but mostly the things I make just puzzle them, First, there's no ugali, and second, what the hell is a salad? Everyone eats, and says mzuri sana, asante kwa chakula, but I get the feeling they run right home for a wad of ugali before they go to bed so they won't starve during the night.
My adult students want me to make them American food. Think I'll go with pasta, a whole lot of it. Maybe if I overcook it and roll it into a big ball...
Breakfast for the locals is usually not until around ten, when everyone takes chai. Chai is sweet tea made with milk instead of water. Along with the chai is often times maandazi, a lump (yet another lump) of fried dough, not sweet, just dough. Good when eaten fresh, less endearing an hour later.
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| Watermelons. also available only outside of Berega. |
There's chapati, which I use to make African breakfast burritos, and which the locals eat naked (the chipati). I dearly love half cakes, a small square lump of, yep, fried dough. But half cakes are sweet, and if you buy them just after frying they're crispy and wonderful. Mostly they're a little old, because they stay in the store until they sell, but sometimes I get to the duka early and scoop up a bunch of fresh ones. Don't know if I like whole cakes, so far I've never seen one, and haven't thought to ask.
Food here is a big deal, like everywhere. The difference is Americans wonder what they will eat today, while people here wonder if they will. Americans crave variety in their menu, folks here find comfort in a ball, wad, lump of ground maize. It's been an eye opener living here. I'm aware enough to bear a small measure of guilt over how much easier my life is, but not enough to live in a mud hut and eat ugali seven days a week.
Rarely in the US did I ever have such moral dilemmas, you'd think at my age I'd have figured it all out, but it just gets more complicated. As simply as I live, there's just such a huge disparity between my life and the lives of my neighbors. They don't think twice about it, though, and even if they do, they're too polite to mention it.
There's a chubby bald guy named Andrew Zimmern, who has a food show. He travels the globe eating worms and roaches and other nasty garbage, you've probably seen the show. Well, one episode took him to Tanzania, and he spent the entire hour showing us how Tanzanians eat dirt soup and other things I've personally never seen or been offered. Since then I don't like him. I freely admit that in the main I'm not impressed with Tanzanian dishes, but I have had great food here. It's just been prepared by people with enough money to buy the ingredients. Mostly I don't live around those people. Mostly, I'm just be happy to be eating.
Nakupenda
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