“we shouldn’t have gone to italy”

Derek and I just ended a two-week gastronomic affair with Italy. We were first in Torino for the Slow Food/Salone del Gusto food conference. Then a stop off to Cinque Terre and onto Roma for six days of melt in your mouth cuisine.

Our first day back in Nairobi involved grocery shopping. Unfortunately the choices are limited. There is one very small organic market that has totally inconvenient hours unless you are unemployed, but in that case, you wouldn’t be able to afford the food there. The store is limited – some local vegetables, butter, eggs and some meats like chicken and rabbit. But better than nothing right? We always seem to get there around 5:30 when the store is “closing” (which is at 5:45). Hmmm….is this an anti-localvore conspiracy?

The other choices around Nairobi are the big walmart like Nakumatt or the Muthiaga market that has a separate fruit/vegetable store with the saddest looking selection of lifeless plant life I have ever seen. The market also has a meat market that smells like rotting flesh, which is not all that ironic, and the meat looks like well, rotting flesh. Flies in meat shops = not good.

ecogastronomy at nakumatt

To compare those options to the plethora of open air markets of Italy, like Campo de Fiore with colorful fresh fruits and vegetables of all kinds, usually seasonal and local, or the ecogastronomica pleasures of the cheese shops, the salumerias, the macellerias, or the pasticcerias. Mamma mia. Ah, my appetite just came back!

campo de fiore

But alas, Kenya is where we live, and we have to find a way to survive as foodies living without a lot of variety and choice. We are back less than 12 hours, and it is not looking good. We bought a very small amount of pecorino cheese from the market here (which cost $10 bucks…) and when derek tasted it, the only thing he said was “we shouldn’t have gone to italy.”

Matoke with Njahi beans, Sauteed Pumpkin Leaves and Tandoori Chicken Breasts

We’ve been doing a lot of cooking at home since we’ve been in Nairobi. Being that Jess is the breadwinner now, most of the cooking is now falling on my shoulders. Not that I (Derek, her house-husband and guest blogger) am fast becoming a member of the “ex-pat wives club,” I mean, I do work part-time and still run a small press. But I definitely have more free time around the house to cook. Being in Nairobi, there are also less restaurants and eating options, at least that qualify as a culinary experience. And the good restaurants aren’t cheap. And being that Jess is advising Africans on nutrition, it’s only right that we learn and experiment with local cuisines. Right?

Being a mzungu that hadn’t set foot on African soil til last year, it’s only natural that I haven’t acquired a taste for Kenyan or African food. I must admit I’m partial to Mexican food, having spent many years in Mexico and the Southwest of the U.S. On the outside, Kenya, being a corn-based society, with a similar climate and available foods, seems to have all the components to make good Mexican food. Not! There is a whole aisle in the supermarket dedicated to corn flour, but as I’ve discovered, the hard way, none of it is suitable for making tortillas (the outcome if you try it, will be more like a crumbly and gritty corn pancake). I think I know what to do (with the help of some lye) to make proper corn masa for tortillas, but that is the subject of another entry, once successful.

This post is about my experimentation with a few native Kenyan food staples: black njahi beans, matoke (green bananas, and actually more typically Ugandan than Kenyan) and pumpkin leaves, and my efforts to make them palatable to the spice-desensitized mzungu tongue. All the ingredients in this dinner were purchase at Nakumatt, which I’m ashamed to admit is like the Wal-mart of Kenya. There are better options, but we don’t have a car at the moment, and Nakumatt is closest, so that’s my lame excuse. But it also speaks to the power of the Nakumatts and Wal-marts of the world. People will always find excuses to shop there, and it takes more effort not to. Again, the subject of another post that I’m sure Jess can speak more to.

Literally Eating Dirt

An interesting thing I discovered today at Nakumatt is that they sell “baked clay.” Telling someone to “eat dirt” elsewhere in the world is usually what you say (in the heat of competition) when you willfully want them to crash or wipe out. Well, in Kenya, and other parts of Africa, they do literally eat dirt. I think “geophagy” is the term I’ve heard Jess use for it. The other day we were buying charcoal in the nearby village and the woman was selling mounds of clay rocks. Jess asked what it was for, and the woman said that pregnant mothers eat it. Again, I’ll let Jess speak to the nutrition validity of whether eating clay or dirt has any positive or negative benefits, suffice to say, that here’s proof that you can buy edible “clay” in Kenya’s biggest supermarket.

Curious, I took a bite out of it, and guess what? It tastes like eating dirt. I guess you can give Nakumatt kudos for catering to the common folk, though I don’t think the common folk shop there much, considering the prices. But I also acquired the njahi beans there. As well as some camel milk which I’ve acquired a taste for (tastes more like salty grass than regular milk). And I also got some licorice gum that was really good and I’ve never seen elsewhere. But I digress.

Leafy Greens

Kenyans typically eat a green leafy vegetable with every meal, and typically it’s sukuma wiki. But there are a number of other leafy vegetables they eat. The ones available (besides spinach and cabbage and more typical ones) at Nakumatt were terere, kahurura and sagetti. I actually didn’t know what they were besides these names, though I thought the kahurura looked like pumpkin leaves, which I had my heart set on. So that’s what I got. Now on to the dishes:

- Stewed matoke with njahi beans (a la Derek)
- Sautéed pumpkin leaves
- Tandoori chicken

Matoke with Njahi Beans

Most recipes for matoke with njahi beans call for little more than boiling both and mixing them together, either mashed or in chunks. Without any spice, matoke is very bland, at least to my tongue. Maybe there are certain subtleties to appreciate, I don’t get it.

Ingredients:
- A few cups of njahi beans
- Five or so green cooking bananas (matoke)
- one white onion
- a few cloves of garlic
- a few chilies
- can of tomatoes
- olive oil, salt, white wine and spices to taste

1. Soak the njahi beans the night before. They are funny looking beans, they look like tiny black clams or inverted goat eyes. Evidently kikuyus serve njahi beans as a specialty for pregnant mothers due to high iron content. Why eat clay, when you can njahi beans?

2. Rinse and drain the beans then boil for about half a day. While I was cooking them, I was doing some research on njahi (also known as lablab beans) and found this site that warned they were poisonous if not cooked properly! Not sure the validity of that claim, but needless to say, I drained them and rinsed them over three times. I’ve heard rinsing beans and starting with fresh water is good for reducing gas anyway. Can’t hurt. [... And the next day neither Jess or I had gas, not to mention that we are alive!]
3. When the beans are cooking they smell strongly of beans. Hard to explain, kind of a dirty bean smell. Open the windows. They slowly start to lose their blackness and white eyes. I added a bit of lemon and that really lightened them up.
4. While the beans are boiling, peel the matoke (green bananas). I quickly discovered they are not easy to peel. I made two slits along the length to make it easier. I also discovered that my hands were coated in this gummy glue after peeling the bananas. It was impossible to wash off. However, after peeling the bananas, I also made some fresh salsa (we don’t eat a meal without fresh salsa on hand made of tomatoes, chilies, onions, limes, and cilantro) and discovered that the lemons (they were out of limes at Nakumatt) work great for cutting the green banana glue! I washed my hands with the lemon rinds, and the banana goop came right off. Another thing about the matoke, after you peel and quarter them, throw them into a bowl of cold water, otherwise they become discolored. I could see from the remnants on the cutting board, that it will indeed turn gray if you don’t heed this advice.
5. In a saucepan, sauté onions, garlic, olive oil, chilies and white wine (preferably from South Africa or whatever continent you live on).  Thankfully, they do have chilies here, a skinny green variety that do have a kick on the order of a jalapeno.
6. Add crushed tomatoes (might be better with proper tomato sauce). Spice to taste (I added salt, pepper, red chili, oregano and other spices).
7. Add this mixture to the njahi beans, then throw the matoke into the mix. Add olive oil and wine and water so it gets nice and brothy. It occurred to me that I would’ve liked to have a can of chicken stock at this point, which would probably make it really good. I do admit though, I put some stuff called “mchuzi mix” into it, which is really popular here (there is almost a whole aisle dedicated to it at Nakumatt). It’s essentially chicken-bouillon/corn starch.
8. Boil for about a half an hour until the matoke is nice and mushy.

Tandoori Chicken Breasts

This is like the third or fourth time I’ve made tandoori chicken since being here. We have this little grill that we bought that is awesome. The other night I made the whole meal with this grill, steaks and grilled peppers on top of the grill, and baked potatoes wrapped in foil embedded in the coals.

But I diverge. This time was tandoori chicken. I’ve made it kind of different every time based on what I had on hand, but this is how I made it this time.

- chicken breasts
- yoghurt
- tandoori powder
- garlic
- ginger or ginger powder

1. The charcoal we got from the nearby village, not coal, but wood-based. No gas or fire-starter was used to light it, just paper and one match and twigs and wood gathered in the yard. Once that gets going, you put the charcoal on the fire and they’ll eventually catch. Let them get nice and hot with no flame.

2. Meanwhile, combine yoghurt with tandoori spice, crushed garlic and ginger, and slop the chicken breasts around in it.
3. Let marinate for an hour or so.
4. Slap the breasts on the grill. If you have a dog, make sure the dog doesn’t snatch them. I put the grill in the doorway where I could see it, and took down the hammock so I wouldn’t trip over it running to scare the dog away.
5. It’s always a good idea to make too much, as nothing’s better than leftover tandoori chicken used to make fajitas.
6. Cook until burnt. I don’t know what it is about the tandoori, whether it’s the nature of the spices, or the yogurt, but it should get nice and charcoaled, blackened even.

Pumpkin Leaves Sautéed with Olive Oil, Lemon and Salt

I originally got the pumpkin leaves thinking I would mix them into the matoke, which I’ve had around here and is really good. At the store they were labeled as “Kahurura,” but looking around online, it seemed kahurura was something else. I asked Angie (the housekeeper in the main house) what it was, and she confirmed that it was indeed pumpkin leaves (Cucumis ficifolius).

Angie also told me I did a bad job picking it out, and that it wasn’t fresh. Now I know. She gave me additional advice about my matoke. In the main house, she was cooking up pumpkin in a spicy peanut sauce. She told me she had a recipe for matoke with peanut butter that was to die for (though not in those words). Anyways, to counterbalance my bad choice in pumpkin leaves (the leaves were “rough” and not tender fresh), I needed to add baking soda. So here’s the recipe.

- Big wad of pumpkin leaves (as with any leafy vegetable, it reduces down drastically)
- garlic
- white wine
- olive oil
- lemon (or lime)
- baking soda (if you didn’t pick leaves well)
- salt, pepper and spices to taste.

1. Put it all in a pan and flash fry. You might have to add some water initially to get it to reduce.

Voila. Eat!

Here’s what it all looked like in the end.

We washed it down with white wine (Obikwa), which is not usually my beverage of choice, but I’m all stuffed up and red wine doesn’t help. Beer would probably be even better, especially Tusker. I made fresh salsa too but we forget to eat it. It tasted good and was filling and nutritious. And there’s enough leftovers to reinvent it into something else tomorrow, like melt cheese over it and dice the chicken up for fajitas and have it with the forgotten salsa.

The food biography of a continent

I have just finished reading John Reader’s Africa, the Biography of a Continent. It is such a vast undertaking to read a book such as this – 700 pages long – starting basically from the origins of earth and mankind, and walking you through snapshot by snapshot, the emigration of Africa and the attempt to capitalize on Africa through slavery, mineral resources, and human capital for many centuries. The epitome of the white man’s burden but based on factual meticulous evidence.

African history to say the least is controversial, but one thing stands true in each and every chapter of Reader’s book. Food is king.  Food is mentioned in almost every single chapter of this book and why? Because food plays a huge and significant role in the way we humans evolved, the way we migrated, the way we formed tribes, the way we survived. Hunters, gatherers, pastoralists, agriculturalists all had a unique place in the African landscape and many civilizations such as the Egyptians, Ashantis, Great Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Swahili, Bantu Nigerian, to name just a few, had such rich cultures, and food was and is always a part of culture. These foods still exist today in many of the African countries we travel through but with so many attempts at stealing the identity of the African continent, I wonder how much has been lost.

Zanzibar Soup…

I have had Zanzibar Soup three times now since being in Nairobi and it is always different. I had it recently at the Talisman, a white Kenyan hangout that is ridiculously expensive in Karen, Nairobi. One person blogged about and didn’t have too many good things to say about the joint.

the talisman

The soup was almost like Thom Yum Gung but without the Thai spices. It seems to always have coconut milk and some sort of fish or crab. And it is mighty tasty. I found one recipe online but it looks nothing like the soup I had. I guess I will have to go to Zanzibar to taste the real thing.

African foods in new york city and blogging

As this is my first post on You Are What You Eat, I was struggling what to write about while being creative, witty and thoughtful. Then I saw an article in the NY Times this morning entitled “In Epicurean New York, the Challenge of Africa.” This article pretty much summarizes my feeling of NY and Africa (which I am moving to in seven days, Kenya that is) and the idea of food and its pleasures.

First, the title of the article says so much. Africa is huge. Made up of over 50 countries with many cultures, traditions, and diverse food choices. When we think about Thai and Japanese and Chinese food, do we lump them into the same category calling them “food of Asia”? I think people have yet to discover the diversity of foods in the many different countries of Africa with the exception of Ethiopian and Moroccan food. And if you just think of those two countries alone, doro wat is just a little different than your lemony chicken tajine. And Africa as a challenge? Of course its a challenge. We are talking about AFRICA and importing years of tradition and culture around food. Many know very little so let’s just tag it as a “challenge.”

Second, epicurean. The dictionary provides this definition: fond of or adapted to luxury or indulgence in sensual pleasures; having luxurious tastes or habits, esp. in eating and drinking. Some just feel that Africa is not “there” yet. And of course this goes beyond food. Back to that word “challenge.” In order to experience African food, it has to wrapped in a Marcus Samuelsson bow or be south of 14th Street? Marcus, an Ethiopian, has done much to introduce the new york mzungu to a gourmet and luxurious gastronomic experience of african-like foods but other than that, African restaurants aren’t taking up too much real estate in NY’s scene.

Third, the sensual pleasures of food. This is truly a luxury for some. Right now, many communities living in countries in sub-Saharan Africa are struggling to get enough food to make ends meet. Food insecurity runs rampant particularly with the high cost of food grains and oils right now. Interesting that here in New York, in which some of the wealthiest people reside, we complain about how African food just hasn’t really satisfied our picky palate with its “tough meat” when people there are struggling to survive.

As Africa embarks on its own African Green Revolution, and as more people travel to the continent, and experience what its 53 very diverse countries have to offer, Africa’s time will come. If that time means Africa has to come to us – having African foods on Whole Foods market shelves, or dining on cuisine of Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, or Mauritania, in the west village, then maybe Africa won’t be considered such a challenge anymore.