Greensie and Beanies

I certainly couldn’t go without posting about one of my primary loves, food.  I’ve made an effort to learn as much about the Ugandan diet as I could (both in theory and hands on… definitely the best kind of learning when it comes to food).  I often tell them how jealous I am because their climate allows them to grow almost anything they want.  I warn you, this post will be long.  Food deserves some good attention.   

The Ugandan diet, like many diets in developing countries, is based entirely on starch.  SO MUCH STARCH.  For a girl who grew up on meat and veggies and has a relatively low carb intake (not for health reasons, just because I enjoy other foods more), this is probably the biggest culture shock.  Their staple foods are cassava (whole or dried and made into flour for bread or posho, a paste-like dish), maize (sometimes whole and roasted, but usually in the form of white refined flour made into posho or porridge), green starchy banana (steamed and mashed to make matoke), Irish potato, white sweet potato, rice, sorghum, and millet.  When they eat a meal, it’s usually a plate full of the carb(s) of choice… like the amount I would consider appropriate for three people… along with a little bit of meat in broth and maybe some greens or tomatoes or beans, which they consider a vegetable.

You might notice that this means the majority of their diet, aside from being mostly starch, is mostly white.  I encourage things like yellow maize, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, and whole grains, and an organization called HarvestPlus (focuses on biofortification) is also becoming active in the area to mobilize farmers to plant orange-fleshed sweet potatoes… what great timing.   Hopefully these things will actually be adopted.

One of the kitchens I had the opportunity to visit.  The covered pots are where matoke and posho are steaming, and the center pot is obviously some meat.  The only ventilation for the smoke from these fires is a space at the top of the wall, below the ceiling.  I stood in there as long as I could without breathing very much, and Agnes made fun of my strained face.  I don't know how they do it.

This mess of a picture is a field, or garden.  Not all of them are this crazy, but this isn't unusual.  You can see corn, cassava, some peas, beans, a young avocado tree?, and many other plants that I can't identify.

One of the dishes I really like is called pilau (pilaf).  It’s mostly rice, with spices and a bit of meat and some potato usually mixed in.  In the market they also dress it with a bit of cabbage and a couple slices of tomato.  This dish is definitely Hussein’s favorite… he orders it every day for lunch.  I ordered it for a few days, but of course soon got tired of eating a whole bowl full of rice.  One of the more nutritious starch options I could order is probably matoke, and I do sometimes, but unfortunately I don’t like it very much.  It’s so starchy and heavy and mostly flavorless unless they cook it in sauce.  It’s like every time I take a bite I want it to be a little sweet because it’s a banana, but sadly it never is. 

Pilau on a good day, with meat I can easily chew and a decent portion of greens.  I've already eaten some of it at this point, and this was only a half order.  In the background you can see the delicious afia, which is a mango concentrate drink with added sugar.  That baby has like 50 g of sugar.

Agnes tells me that a lot of Indians lived here in the 1970’s, and besides leaving behind buildings and businesses, they also left behind a few culinary treats.  I was surprised to find chapatti (a kind of cross between naan and a tortilla that I’ve eaten many times with Amudhan) was commonly made in the restaurant and marketplace.  It’s delicious.  They also have other versions of fried breads, generally not sweet.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve really had any type of dessert since I’ve gotten here, except for the chocolate bar that Andrea gave me (which Agnes and Namukose also loved… thanks Andrea).  Then of course, there’s the soda, which is definitely the most “American” thing I’ve encountered.  Pepsi and Coca-Cola have quite pervasive marketing (their signage is everywhere), and the irony of having bottles of Coke and Pepsi but no clean water source does not escape me.   

I think these little coke delivery trucks are pretty cute.

For protein foods, they eat meat (usually beef or goat… pork is not around due to Muslims), chicken, eggs, fish (larger fish or the small anchovy-like silver fish), organs, eggs, and insects.  The protein component of a meal is usually small though, and because meat is expensive many in the rural districts can’t afford it on a regular basis.  There’s a little bit of a “poor people” stigma connected to eating silver fish and insects, but I tell them they’re good sources of nutrition and I hope they keep eating them.  I feel a bit hypocritical when they then ask me if I eat them.  :/  Agnes talks about these white ants that they take and dry and then eat as a snack.  She says “It is not yet the season for these ants.  It’s too bad you will not be here to try them, they are very good!”  Yes Agnes, I’m devastated.  (;  This might be one dish I’m ok missing out on, but of course if they offered them to me I would try them.  If they can eat them, I can, right?

When I first walked through this little market, I stopped at the stand across from this fish stand, the cabbage lady, and hadn't yet seen the fish.  The whole time I was standing at the cabbage lady I was like "what is that awful smell??  It can't be the cabbage"... and then I turned around.  You can't see all the flies, but let's just say there were enough to make me not want to try silver fish.

One of the many open-air butcher shops along the market and streets. 

They also grow beans, peanuts (usually they eat roasted or boiled fresh), other types of nuts, like sesame, peas, and soy beans.  I’ve taken to calling them soya beans because it’s what I hear all the time here.  Ugandans use maize and soya beans as staple foods in the diet, rather than animal feed or ingredients for food processing as we do in America.  

The most common vegetables by far (not counting potatoes/sweet potatoes) are greens (from any number of plants, like amaranth, peas, and pumpkin) and cabbage.  Tomatoes and eggplant are also common.  I’ve also seen peppers, pumpkins, green beans, and a few other things.  

Cabbage is commonly sold sliced in little bags, and I think it just ferments a little by the time they eat it.  This obviously isn't the most hygienic situation for slicing cabbage, so I'm sure there are plenty of natural bacteria.  (: 

Fruits are in abundance during harvest season, and they’re all the delicious tropical things I wish I could grow in my backyard- avocados, bananas (both sweet and starchy), mangos, pineapple, citrus, passion fruit, jackfruit, etc.  More than once I’ve been given mangos, avocados, and even a pumpkin as gifts at the trainings.   I think they expect me to take some of the fruits and vegetables home with me, but I have to tell them there’s little chance of getting them through the airport.  I’ve developed the important life skill of peeling a mango with my hands and teeth and chewing it off the seed like the children do.  So much more efficient than using a pesky knife, and then I get the whole mango.  Oh, and they also grow coffee and cacao. 

One of these jackfruits is the size of a small child and a quick internet search tells me they can weigh between 10 and 80 lbs.  I have yet to taste them because it's a little early in the season, but I am determined.  

In the mornings I take breakfast at the hotel, which involves a slice of white bread, potatoes or starchy bananas in some form, an egg either hard boiled or in an omelet thing, and some black tea with milk.  Ugandans often seem to sit with people they don't know at meals, so every now and then I meet someone interesting at breakfast.  Last weekend a popular Ugandan singer named Bobi Wine happened to be staying at the same guest house as me (it’s really the only option in the area).  He and his manager and one of the members of the band sat down at the table with me and we talked for a bit.  Bobi drove a big loud truck, talked mostly of partying, made some crude jokes, and was generally kind of a tool, but it was still a fun experience.  

I obviously didn't take this picture, but I wanted you to have the pleasure of meeting Bobi Wine too.  (;

Other than breakfast, I eat my biggest meal for lunch around 2:00 or 3:00 when Hussein and I go to the restaurant, and I don’t really eat for the rest of the day.  Maybe some snacks in the evening if I’m hungry.  I’m thankful that after a few days my system decided to adjust to Ugandan time and temperature, because for a couple of days I could hardly eat anything and just guzzled water. 

The restaurant experience is one that has taken some getting used to.   There is one restaurant in town, which Hussein and I went to every day for the first week I was here.  A meal typically costs between 3000-6000 shillings depending on what you get, which is the equivalent of $1-$2 American dollars.  They don’t have menus, so when we sit down Hussein just says “What do you want?”  The typical order is the carb source, some meat, and maybe some greens or beans on the side.  For me it’s something like a puzzle, a game to see how I can try new things and end up with as few carbs and as many vegetables as possible.  It’s more challenging than you would think.  For instance, if I wanted to order just beans and meat and vegetables, they wouldn’t know what to do with me.  One time I ordered just chapatti and beans, and again, they didn’t know what to do with me.  Hussein usually asks me a few times to clarify really, that’s really what you want? before relaying the message to the waitress.   And when he orders me greens and beans, he says greensie and beanies, which never fails to make me laugh.  I think at this point I’ve tried pretty much everything they offer.

After about a week of eating at the restaurant, I asked Hussein if there were any other restaurants in town, to which he said no.  I asked if there was food at marketplace (I’d seen them at least making chapatti), and he seemed surprised that I wanted to go there, but agreed.  Side note: he kept calling restaurants “hotels”, which I didn’t pick up on for a while and led to some funny exchanges.   When we eat at the market, we sit down at a little table outside, they bring us our orders, and we eat it with our hands.  There are usually 5-10 people watching me while I eat.  Sometimes they laugh or say things, and Hussein says, laughing, “They are wondering… wondering what is this white skin doing in the marketplace eating with her hands??  White skin don’t eat in the marketplace.”  I love eating in the market and I love eating with my hands because I get to use one more sense to experience it.  When I eat when my hands I feel more connected with my food and the people who made it, and I love being among Ugandans eating Ugandan food how the Ugandans eat it, even if it makes them wonder and laugh.   

My view of the market from where we sit to eat.  The place where we usually get our food is on the far left.