Taste the Jambo

I love food. I love knowing about what makes it work. I love making it. I love trying to create traditional recipes with accuracy, and trying to combine non-traditional elements with style. I love knowing the history of food, why it was cultivated and why each dish carries the cultural weight it does. I love to think about what food means to different people, and how the cuisine of a place reflects its population. I love the stories, the flavors, the traditions surrounding food. So, it is high time I did a food post for Eldoret. As you read, you will probably want to refer to the illustration below. This was my first full, traditional Kenyan meal, with each component labeled.

A: Ugali B: Chipati C: Suma Wiki D: Beef Stew E: Green Gram

First, let’s talk staples. Grains are staples throughout the world, and in developing countries, I find that “staple” comes to mean “frequently appearing.” Thus, rice is a constant meal component throughout central America and in many parts of poor Asia. Even in our more prosperous countries, rice or bread or pasta tend to accompany almost every meal, a fact which any person who has ever thought about his dinner can confirm. Kenya is no exception to this reality.

Here, the staple grain is a food called “ugali.” Peter Rono tells me that in his family, they say, “If you have not had ugali, you have not had dinner,” a saying which could easily be the motto of nearly every family in Eldoret. Ugali is interesting in its function, although in and of itself it is largely unremarkable. The grain is rather like the grits so loved in the American south, except that it is stickier, almost like sushi rice, and often served cold. To eat ugali, one pinches off a piece, rolls it into a loose ball, and dips it in whatever else is on one’s plate.

Ugali starts its life as a native maize. That maize is then dried, and it is here that things begin to get interesting. I was teaching the biblical story of Ruth a week ago, and I paused the narrative for a moment to discuss the way in which God provides for the poor in Israelite culture. In Ruth, we see a number of customs designed to uphold the disenfranchised, including levirate marriage and laws regarding the harvest. This latter device includes the precept that when one is bundling harvested grain, he must leave whatever he drops wherever it falls. The poor of the community are then encouraged to come by and pick, or glean, from whatever has fallen, so that they need neither go hungry nor beg for their dinner. While I was lauding the virtue of this system, one of my students told me that it is still going on in Eldoret. Here, at the soccer stadium (a building with a rather exaggerated title), the people lay out their harvested maize to dry, so that it can then be milled into the meal that will turn into ugali. As it turns out, it is expected here that when one gathers up the dried maize, one will not be too careful to get every stalk. The poor women may then, a la Ruth, come and collect what is left behind. I’m curious to know whether this as an old tribal custom, or if it is something that came when the British missionaries began to Christianize the country. Either way, it’s an inspiring little blast from the deuteronomical past.

Of course, one cannot subsist entirely on sushi grits. So, there are a couple of other traditional compliments that accompany many ugali dinners. The most common, I gather, is “suma wiki.” Suma wiki is essentially a variety of green, like American collards (colored greens) or turnip or mustard greens. The preparation here, though, is decidedly less vinegar-based than any of its American cousins. I think the plant itself may also be less tough, since suma wiki tastes rather fresher than American greens, leading me to believe that it requires less cooking time. In the same way that ugali has a little saying to solidify its character as the ubiquitous staple grain of choice, suma wiki has a piece of folklore to celebrate it. These Africans love their proverbs and fables. “Wiki” is the Kiswahili word for “week,” and the story goes that suma wiki was added to ugali to break up the monotony of the local fare. Thus, it helped the “wiki” to pass more quickly.

We have now covered the grain and the vegetable that dominate the local diet. To this, we must add a protein. Eating animals at every meal is quite expensive, so that’s pretty well out. In fact, it is a mark of prosperity in this culture, and in many others like it across the world, for a person to be able to eat meat every day. In Kenya, I consider this a particular sign of poverty, since the meat around here is not very good. Most of it seems to be quite tough to begin with, and no one here has ever heard the term “medium rare.” Instead, Kenyans eat a legume that I’m pretty sure is closely related to lentils, if it is not in fact the same wonderful little bean-vegetable-plant-seed. Let me say here that if you are looking for a new staple to add to your diet, add lentils. They are versatile, they are delicious, they play well with any number of culinary styles, they are extremely healthful, and Esau sold Jacob his birthright for a bowl of them. So you know they’re good. Green grams exhibit all this fantastic virtue, making for a delightful addition to the other two fairly bland staples of the Kenyan table. Typically, they are prepared as a thick stew, seasoned with little more than salt and scraps of tomato or onion. And they really don’t need much else.

Added to this modest trio are a wide variety of stews, which seem to be more a general principle than to be based on any particular recipe. Indeed, there doesn’t even seem to be a particular Kiswahili word for any particular stew. I learned this when I got lunch one day, and decided to be verbally curious about my meal. I asked the cook what one thing on my plate was, pointing to it, and she told me in a thick Kenyan accent that it was called “chipati.” Turning to the other component of my meal, I asked, “And this?” She looked at me with something between puzzlement and pity for my stupidity, and flatly replied, “Vegetable stew.” Such stews are another thing into which ugali can be dipped, and they often include carrots, onions, and cabbage. If there are some bones or scraps of animal carcass lying around, the cook will toss these in as well—a fact which I found out in the most dangerous way possible. The stews are fairly mild in flavor, the Kenyan’s preferring not to spice their food much. It is in these stews that I find my greatest objection to Kenyan cuisine, for they are the sovereign domain of my arch nemesis, cilantro. They stuff swims through the stews like an overwhelming, languid, over-appreciated pond weed. Nonetheless, even cilantro cannot manage to ruin a good stew, and so it is that I manage to ignore its offence in regard for the dish as a whole.

There is one more food that often graces a Kenyan plate, and it is the more sophisticated, prettier, pleasanter older sister of ugali. Chipati, my friends, is where it’s at. Think of a crepe that has greater than average substance, and that is quite a bit more savory with flavors lent by a benevolent griddle, and you’re in the chipati neighborhood. I love the stuff, and one eats it much like ugali: dip into anything and everything, and chew slowly. The Kenyan nativity of this dish, however, is questionable in my mind. Chipati is flour-based, and it seems unlikely to me that the maize-based ugali would have reached such imminence had good flour always been available. However, regardless of how longstanding the tradition of chipati is, it has come to be regarded as completely traditional, which suits me just fine.

To these, the most common Kenyan foods, is added chai whenever possible. I have written extensively on chai already, so I’ll be brief here. The drink is like an American chai latte, except far more milky than spicy, and with the good grace to be inundated with vanilla. I think it a nearly perfect thing to drink whenever possible. Peter tells me that in Kenya, any time is tea time, and I see why. Chai is mild enough to be highly drinkable, unlike coffee or wine. It is complex enough not to be cloying, unlike coke. And it is warm and rich, so that it has none of the bite of fruit juices. Plus, who would want to drink water when chai is available? The devotion to it is so great here that I am told drinking steaming chai is the preferred method for relieving one’s body when one is working in the equatorial sun on a hot day. I find this particular application to be stretching even the considerable merits of chai, but I am enthusiastic enough about the stuff to suspend judgment until I have tested it myself.

Of course, chai isn't the only drink on the block. All the regulars are also here, with coffee and fruit juices occupying prominent places. However, only one other is really worth mentioning: fermented milk. Now, I've written before on fermented milk, and explained discovering the drink in the worst way possible. If you're curious about the experience, which you should be, check out my recent post "The Kenyan Muzungu." However, for the sake of a complete picture, I feel I must say something here. So: fermented milk is a traditional drink among the Kalenjin tribes, of which I may be a member. It is exactly what it sounds like, with charcoal added to remove the poisons created by the fermenting process. It tastes real bad, but it is an honor to be allowed to drink it. So, there.

Ugali, suma wiki, green gram, chipati, a stew, and chai: this is all that is needed for a proper Kenyan meal. But I hasten to add that these alone are insufficient to give a full picture of cuisine in Kenya, because the food itself is only half the equation. The way that dinner is presented here is at least as important as what’s being eaten. In a forthcoming post, I shall relate this side of Kenyan dinner. Until then, I bid you Good Eats.