Food

Food.

I like food.  (FACT).  And I have been lucky enough in my thirty something years to never have gone hungry, and never been in need of food.   I have had the luxury of living in a country where there is a choice of any food I want and I have had the money to buy it.  The difference between “want” and “need”  is not something we really appreciate whilst walking around Tescos in the UK… “I really need some pine nuts for my home made pesto and they do not have any!!  The Horror!, quick write a letter to the guardian!” “I really need a double skinny- choca-mocha-latte”   These are wants, not needs.   You will still survive without that £4 coffee from Starbucks and your children are not going to be malnourished if you can’t get all the ingredients for Jamie Oliver’s latest recipe.  

The reality for many poor people in Tanzania is they do not have the food they need, nor the money to buy it.  Many survive by growing their own produce on small plots of land, and selling any surplus to provide a small income so If their crops fail, they have no food for their family.  Living in rural Tanzania has made me appreciate the difference between wants and needs.  It is not possible to get all the food I “want”, but thankfully I have enough money to get the food I need. There are no big supermarkets in rural areas, no Indian takeaways, delivery pizza or dodgy petrol station sandwiches as all of my food is bought from the local market and small shops and so I have had to adjust to a different diet, and a different approach to food.  At first this was a shock, but having lived here for 7 months I am now enjoying the gastronomy, and infact Tanzania does offer some amazing culinary delights!

Nyangao Market

More of the market, including the "cookware" isle!

 

The Market in Nyangao sells a limited range of fruit and veg, only what can be grown locally and is in season, however it is all cheap,  really fresh and tasty as it is harvested and bought straight to the market – not picked, frozen, flown halfway across the world then sat wilting on a supermarket shelf for a week.  I can always get onions, peppers, tomatoes (you have not tasted a tomato until you have a Tanzanian one), okra, spinachy type leaves, potatoes, coconuts, aubergine type things and some really good chillies.  Fruits depend what is in season.  When I first arrived it was orange season – the best oranges I have ever tasted -  so juicy and “orangey” and warm from the sun -  even though they were greeny yellow, not orange on the outside.  Now it is just coming to the end of Mango season.  Nyangao is full of mango trees so there were mangos everywhere… if you are quick enough you can pick them off the ground as they fall, but you have to race the local kids to them!  Even if you have to resort to buying mango in the market, the cost (400 shillings =10p) is not going to break the bank even on a VSO allowance, and the taste is just divine… warm from the sun, juicy and so fresh!  

Got any tomatoes? of course you have!

I now know all of the stall holders in the market and say hello and chat to everyone as I walk through (in Kiswahili of course!), eyeing up who has the best tomatoes or the cheapest peppers that day.  It’s always worth looking at what they have as occasionally there will be a pineapple, or as last month – mushrooms (big white flat mushrooms, full of grit and pretty tasteless- but they were still mushrooms!).   In the towns of Lindi and Mtwara there is slightly more choice, and I maight find carrots or cabbage, the occasional cucumber and fruits imported from elsewhere in Tanzania such as passion fruit (fresh, big yellow ones, not the shrivelled wrinkly black things you find in the UK), pineapple and avocado.

This chap usually has the best peppers and chillies

Ugali, Rice and Beans form a large part of a Tanzanian starch and protein intake.  Ugali is ground maize flour mixed with water into a dough like consistency... It has little flavour on its own but it soaks up the sauce of whatever it is served with and it is very filling.  I’ve become a fan of ugali, and much to the delight of the locals I eat it Tanzanian style, breaking off a small amount with my fingers, squishing it in my hand and dipping it in my beans!  Rice is grown locally, dried in the sun and sold in the market, and there are 6 different types of beans available in the market.   Although I have tried cooking both ugali and the local rice I cannot get it tasting as nice as the locals do, especially the little “restaurant” (wooden shack) where us VSO volunteers go for lunch.  Here you can get a huge portion of ugali or rice and cooked beans for 1000 TSH (20p), although the price did go up recently to 1500TSH (25p) as the price of rice has risen (I did think about writing to the guardian, and then remembered there is no guardian!).  

Meat is both expensive and difficult to get in Nyangao.  Chicken is almost always available, but it does not resemble the plump, juicy, water and growth hormone filled farmed chicken we are used to.  It is more what chicken should be like, scrawny, tough and very little breast meat.  If a cow is tied to the tree by the side of the road, it means it will be slaughtered the next day (in that spot, by the side of the road, and cut up and sold there as well- in the heat, dust and flies!) and there will be beef available, but again this is tough as there is no refrigeration to let the carcass hang and mature.  Goat is also sometimes available, but I have yet to get to the market early enough to get my hands on some! 

Samaki!

 The nearest town of Lindi has some more high quality butchers (they have air con, so at least it is slightly cold in there), and a fantastic fish market where daily catches are sold fresh, or cooked in the market.  Huge tuna steaks for 2000TSH (80p) Red snapper, king fish, and many other fish which don’t seem to have a name – locals just call them all samaki (fish ), but all fresh and very tasty.  There is also a large selection of dried fish, although I’m still not sold on them as they are saly and gritty, with little or no meat on them , just bones.. but they are good for flavouring soups and sauces

Some things we take for granted in the UK are not available here such as fresh dairy produce, nice bread (so I make my own) and cheese.  NO CHEESE!  – Africans don’t seem to do cheese, maybe because of the lack of reliable refrigeration, but maybe just different tastes- my Kenyan housemate hates cheese! However, the best way to make a VSO volunteer happy is to give them cheese- as demonstrated at Christmas (see xmas blog post).   There is also very little “snack” food, crisps, sweets or decent biscuits, and so I have re-found the baking skills I learnt in New Zealand and am baking cakes.  The lab staff love them as do the other volunteers!  There is however a great range of “street food”... which I will save for another blog post!

Because the range of foods available is more limited than in the UK my diet is certainly healthier here, with more fruit and veg, less meat and no takeaways and pizzas. Not having access to supermarkets and working normal hours not shifts has made me plan my meals more, and so I am wasting less food. 

Fish and coconut stew, ugali and spinach

 Some typical meals include roasted veg on top of pasta with a homemade tomato sauce, home made spicy bean burgers, vegetable soup, Spanish omelette, vegetable curry, bean curry, (A few spices available in the market, or bought from the UK add variety and flavour).  I’m also cooking some “local” dishes, such as vegetables in a tomato and coconut sauce, spinach with onions and garlic and coconut and fish soup/stew.   On the occasions I do have meat a curry or stew is the best way to tenderise it.  Although it is still nice to have traditional english dishes such as when I got some bacon, I had a fry-up!!!

good ol' english fry up and a cuppa tea !

If I have been to a big city like Dar es Salaam, or another volunteer has come down from Dar to the south I can get “treats” - Things that are only found in the big supermarkets in Dar, such as cheese, pesto, minced meat, mayo, bacon or couscous.   Treats like these are to be savoured, enjoyed and shared with other VSO volunteers….. and so with my last pack of frozen mince that I bought from Dar a few months ago I made burgers, cooked on a traditional charcoal stove (called jiko), served in a home made bread roll with home made burger relish and a slice of cheese, accompanied by vegetable skewers.  The Nyangao VSO volunteers first BBQ!  It reminded me of many a summer afternoon spent in the UK with a BBQ, good friends and beer or six (although we were missing the pints of Ringwood 49er)!

BBQ -Nyanago Style

Home made lazer burgers!

burgers and veggies

NOM NOM

 So what foods am I missing from back home?  I do miss a good lamb tikka dhansak, pilau rice and a couple of poppadums, although there is an excellent Indian place in Dar which does really good curry.

Nyanago VSO vols enjoying burgers

  And I do miss pizza, although there is an Italian restaurant in Lindi run by an Italian man.  And nothing can really replace a pint and a pasty at the square and compass!  But really, I am not missing much, my diet is good, fresh and tasty, and I have all the food I need.  The things I want can wait and it makes me enjoy them even more when I do get them!

 

(But if anyone can find a way of shipping over some squampass pasties and a keg of 49er then I’d be a happy man !)