When traveling to a foreign land, one of the concerns, excitement mixed with fear, is the food availability and culinary selection of where one is going. This is an even bigger concern for Americans, as we are used to ungodly quantities of whatever we’re eating, ease of acquisition by simply driving up to a fast food restaurant, ordering, grabbing a box from a window, and driving off, and a selection about as vast as the Grand Canyon. None of that describes Shirati, Tanzania; and, as I will pretty much eat anything except for chocolate, mayonnaise, and muster, I have been enveloped in the food culture here. So, to my parents, do not worry, I am not starving or losing a ton of weight; actually, it’s been quite the opposite.
Much of the diet is based on what can be farmed and raised by the family: corn, millet, cassava, cow, goat, sheep, fish, and chicken(/egg), all of which are combined to make the different meals. Those are the foundation of the NW TZ diet. Those who are fortunate add rice and beans (I wish I had my Lizano veggie sauce from Costa Rica with me), a wide array of fruits dominated by the banana, pineapple, and mango, potato, and peppers. Other than that, it’s pretty simple. The two basic meals are ugali and uji, the second of which you may recognize from my project with VLOP. Whereas ugali is the bread of the diet, uji is porridge; yet they have the same ingredients, just cooked differently: one baked over the fire, the other cooked with water. Ugali is probably THE quintessential base of the Tanzanian diet, and I have yet to get to try it or the uji…not cool.
We have enjoyed much of the above food: marage na wali (red beans and rice); goat/beef/lamb with rice and cabbage; chapatti, the Tanzanian version of a tortilla, served with anything; flat pancakes; mondazi (fried dough); lots of egg for breakfast; fish and chips (French fries), which is the “pub/restaurant food” here; goat/beef/lamb/fish stew; and others. One thing I can definitely say about SHED is they provide a good variety of local TZ cuisine, meals with a little American flavor, and meals considered luxury to anyone. To tell you all the culinary novelties that I have enjoyed would be ridiculous and inefficient. I have learned, though, of one thing that I DO NOT like:
This morning we had a great breakfast of pancakes, jelly, sugar, and tea. The pancakes are by far my favorite breakfast and are not like American pancakes, as I don’t think they use baking powder here. They are light, thin, and easy to eat A LOT OF. You could put a tall stack to shame; try three or four tall stacks. After breakfast, though, Robert brought out a container of fruit. Inside was an orange melon-looking fruit sliced into crescent shapes…cantaloupe?! I jumped up so pumped about having cantaloupe and quickly cut off a piece and popped it in my mouth. As the bite was going in my mouth, I noticed there was a small, thin skin on the fruit (uh oh, cantaloupe has rind, not skin). I then bit down onto it, and the taste that came only secured my disappointment that this was not cantaloupe. Not only was it not cantaloupe, but it was one of the worst tastes that I had ever had come from a fruit. It only stayed in my mouth for a few seconds, but in that time, my taste buds were totally horrified, my tongue confused with whether it was touching a fruit or the sweaty armpit of a hairy man who has just run a half-marathon in the desert. Yes, that is exactly what it tasted like. So, from now on, please, oh please, do not EVER let me eat PAPAYA!
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