"It's like there's a chapati in your mouth and everyone's invited"

I hope you all had a very happy normal Thursday this week! I know I did. For no particular reason, I have decided that today is a good day to write about Kenyan food and how much Kenyans love to feed visitors. I also have this weird urge to say that I am very thankful for my field team, the end of the rainy season, the fact that I am coming home in two weeks, and pineapple.

Without further ado, dear readers, I present to you the menu of literally every single home and hotel in Western Kenya. Whoever said variety was the spice of life forgot that Kenyans don't like spicy stuff very much. (Sorry, I lied. Brief further ado: eating establishments in Kenya are called "hotels" as a holdover from the days of British colonialism, when really the only restaurants in the country were those at the hotels catering to Europeans--the word association apparently stuck with the food rather than the lodging, so now if you walk into an establishment in western Kenya that has "hotel" on its sign and ask for a room, they will probably smile and offer you their own bed as they are secretly confused by this unusually demanding customer and wonder how you can eat ugali in bed.)

And now, your specials for this evening:

Ugali - A pale, pasty, lumpy, Play-doh-textured concoction made from maize, served at temperatures usually reserved for melting precious metals. That way, when you follow the local custom of picking it up with your hands and molding it into a kind of edible spoon, the third-degree burns on your fingers conveniently distract you from its complete and total lack of taste. You can ask any Kenyan and they will tell you that a meal without ugali does not count as a real meal, because you cannot possibly feel full unless you've had it. Translation: ugali is a dense delivery vehicle for empty calories to help people feel like their stomachs are full, as they're not likely to have an abundance of other food most days. Tastes like: Nothing. Not as in "like nothing you've ever tasted." As in "nothing." Utterly flavorless. Alternatively, if I could remember what Play-doh tastes like, I suspect ugali would only be slightly worse than that.

Maharagwe - A kind of bean stew. Tastes like: Imagine you are a Mexican cowboy dreaming of some refried beans. But then you forget to refry them and they just turn out kind of liquid-y. You would be an unhappy cowboy, but you would probably still eat them. And they would be okay, but in your mind you would be like, "Ay caramba! These beans could be so much better."

Sukuma - The cheapest locally available vegetable, it kind of looks like green confetti when it's shaved from the larger head. It's also known as "sukuma wiki" (wiki being Swahili for "week") because poor Kenyans will often eat only ugali and sukuma for the last week of the month before they get their paychecks. Tastes like: Spinach. Mixed with grass.

Ndengu - Stewed green lentils. Tastes like: Has kind of a dry, dirt-ish texture, and a savory, dirt-ish flavor.

Kechambari - Sliced tomatoes with onions. Tastes like: Depends where you get it. When properly mixed with dhania (cilantro), it's got a nice pico de gallo flair to it. Otherwise it mostly tastes like tomatoes.

Samaki - Tilapia from Lake Victoria, usually served whole roasted, so that you get to really dig in there with your fingers behind the eyeballs to politely get those last bits of meat out. Of course, if you're really polite, you'll just eat the whole head and not bother with the whole business of distinguishing between meat and organs. Tastes like: Uh, fish.

Kuku/nyama/mbuzi - Kuku = scrawny chicken. Nyama = scrawny beef. Mbuzi = Really scrawny, greasy goat. Tastes like: Hard to say, I'll let you know when I've finally finished chewing.

Wali - Rice. Tastes like: Rice.

Chapati - An oily flatbread, similar to naan but thinner and with less flavor. Tastes like: Freedom.

Matumbo - To understand the story behind matumbo, I need to tell you about my field officer David. David comes from Luo-land, the area where my project does most of its work, so when we're eating lunch out in the field he always takes it upon himself to order something new for me. The first time we tried this system, I ended up with matumbo, which appeared to be some kind of stew with splotchy tubes floating around in it. When I asked David what it was, he would only say, "Just try!" I tried it, thought the rubbery texture was a little weird, but decided it wasn't terrible and gave David a thumbs up. He smiled at me. "It's cow intestine!" Tastes like: Honestly, it tastes like beef. And feels like octopus.

Omena - Another David order, this one was a little easier to visually identify. Omena are tiny fish, cooked until they are dry, crispy, and salted. And actually, they're pretty darn good. Tastes like: What you get if you put anchovies and potato chips in your combination fuse-o-matic shrink machine.

Maziwa chungu - This one was introduced to me by Nellie, another of my field officers. The name in Swahili literally means "sour milk," which has my vote for "Swahili understatement of the decade." This is whole milk that has been allowed to curdle until it gets chunky, and unlike omena, it is not good. Nellie made a deal with me when she served me a glass that if I could make it halfway through within ten minutes, she would drink the rest. I dumped three large spoonfuls of sugar in and gagged my way through for about half an hour before she got impatient, snatched it away from me, and drank the whole thing in two gulps. Apparently this is quite the delicacy in Kenya, because just then Duncan, yet another field officer, walks in and exclaims "Ay, chungu! Why did you not serve me as well?", prompting Nellie to scold me for being too slow, because "now everyone will want some!" Tastes like: Don't ask, don't tell.

By this point, you may have picked up on a general distaste for Kenyan food coming from my direction. I just want to say...yeah, that's basically true. But it does grow on you: there's not a day that goes by when I don't have ugali, sukuma, maharagwe, ndengu, or chapati at some point, and it's not bad at all (the fact that we flavor everything with tabasco sauce and chutney smuggled in from the states doesn't hurt either). I don't even miss stuff like cheeseburgers or apple pie or genetically-enhanced chicken anymore.

Haha, yeah right. First thing I'm eating when I get off that plane.