My Tanzanian Diet

One of the best things about living in Tanzania is the food. While Tanzanian cuisine isn’t (generally) that amazing, Tanzanians do the simple things well, and basic foods like rice, pilau, stewed plantains (green bananas) potatoes, beans, green vegetables, fried chicken or turkey, and tomato sauce (normally with a very tough meat) are the staples at most of the restaurants (known at hotelis) in Ngara. Bars serve an omelet with fries known as chips mayai, mishkaki (skewers, typically goat, but sometimes cow), fried plantains (which are fantastic), and fried goat (that can be seriously delicious, especially after a few beers). If these were my options on a daily basis I would be reasonably happy, as a very big plate of food is never more than 4,000 shillings (or just over $3). But, on top of these prepared options, Ngara is centrally located in an agricultural area, and at the market every Saturday near my house I can get some of the freshest food at the most ridiculous prices. And, as you may know, I love to cook, so this is something of a dream.

There is a permanent market in town that sells most of the things I can get at the market by my house on Saturdays at increased prices, but I rarely go there unless I happen to run out of things, because this market, known as Kojifa, is seriously one of the coolest things about life in Ngara. I can buy many things that include green bananas; small, sweet, yellow bananas (I don’t really like bananas at home, but these are simply amazing); other varieties of bananas; green peppers; avocados; eggplant; carrots; onions; tomatoes; okra; sweet potatoes; yams; normal potatoes; cassava; sugar cane; over five varieties of green leafy vegetables that Tanzanians refer to as mchica, but range from spinach-like to chard-like; at least eight bean varieties (dried or undried); and a bunch of other things I am sure I am forgetting. The prices on these vegetables are unheard of in America. A bunch of green leafy vegetables that would cost $2.99 in America go for 100 shillings here (less than $.10). Two large eggplants cost 1000 shillings (about $.70). Five large sweet potatoes cost the same. A large avocado? $.10-.20 cents. In short, eating well here is easy, and I have so many options to feed myself well.

I will use the last two major meals I cooked as an example. I cook all my food on two charcoal jikos (which are like miniature grills without the grill). Yesterday, I made a pot of beans, and as they finished cooking I added some sautéed onions, hot pepper, garlic, and salt. While the beans were cooking, I chopped up 6 green bananas, and boiled them in water. When they were done, I added the bananas to the beans and let them soak up some of the delicious flavor that had developed in the bean pot. This meal was served with avocado, and my version of chapati (which is a kind of Tanzanian tortilla). The next day, there were leftover beans and bananas. I also boiled some potatoes, and began a tomato sauce, which consisted of sautéed onions, carrots, garlic, hot pepper, salt, and of course tomatoes. I added a little bit of this sauce to the potatoes, and made a kind of tomato-mashed potatoes. To the rest of the sauce, I added chopped eggplant, and ginger, and cooked until the eggplant was tender. To finish the meal off, I heated a bit of oil, and tossed in two heads of a green vegetables that are quite similar to chard, finishing it off with a bit of garlic and salt (this is the only thing I make in a truly Tanzanian style). Delicious.

I swear, every week the food here gets better, as I continue to pick up jiko tricks, and new ways of adding flavor to the food. But really, everything is so fresh that the food doesn’t need a lot of spices to make it good. In the states I found myself relying on a wide variety of spices, but here the only things I use regularly are garlic, ginger, hot pepper, and of course, salt. In fact, the food that I cook here might actually be better than some of the things I make at home, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss burritos, a nice cut of beef, and tender chicken.