A Culinary Tour of Ethiopia

Above is one of my first meals in Ethiopia. Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia fast for an extended Lent period, cutting out all meat and dairy products from their diet. Understandably, the evening before the fasting starts is a huge party night, where people enjoy their last night of feasting on all the forbidden foods. When I tried to order 'fasting food' (the veggie option), I was told I could have it tomorrow. No amount of explaining would get me a veggie meal. In the end, we agreed that we could have a dish with a mixture of meat and veggies. Having had Ethiopian food a number of times, I was content with this, as the sauces normally neatly compartmentalised. But not this time. We were presented with this injera parcel with everything mixed up. I enjoyed nibbling on the omelette on top but was horrified to discover that what I expected to be a tomato sauce was actually raw meat! Even the most hardened carnivores amongst us found that hard to stomach!

Later that evening, we visited a local bar to watch (and tried to join in with) a little cultural dancing. One guy nearly got a slap when he said to my friend 'Do you like touch?' ... The poor bloke was actually just asking her what she thought of the local honey wine, which is called 'tej'! How easily we are misunderstood! 

Saint George is not only the patron saint of England, but is also a bit of a hero in Ethiopia. Churches are dedicated to him throughout the land and the image of him bravely slaying a dragon adorns many a mural. I enjoyed a few beers in his honour too!

Ethiopians enjoy chewing on a little chat, which is said to have a mild euphoric effect. I didn't get that far though as I found it so disgusting that I had to spit it out after a couple of minutes. I didn't fare much better when I tried chewing coca leaves in Peru either! 

Here's a more typical injera dish, where the foods are served separately. Thankfully for me, by everything on this plate was 'fasting food'. My favourites were the spinach and the 'shiro' bean stew. I'm not entirely sure what the cold chips were doing on the plate though!

The Umeme Regime

Open any celebrity magazine and you are guaranteed to find some kind of special diet or other - Raw Food, Blood Type, Detox, Atkins and many more. For the past few months I have been following the Umeme Diet. I suspect that a few of my friends have been doing the same thing. Let me tell you about it. Principally, there are two kinds of days, power and non-power, which usually alternate. Occasionally, I am rewarded by two power days in a row, but that should never be taken for granted. Here are a few examples of some of the types of food you may eat on each of the days.

Power Days
For breakfast, you can make smoothies, have a cup of tea or even a slice of toast
For dinner, choose any hot food you desire (and can find in the shops in Kampala) - pasta dishes, soup, roasted veggies ... the list is endless
Quick snacks may include beans on toast or eggs to your liking
Hot beverages
Baking cakes, scones or desserts

Non Power Days
Breakfast is limited to cereal with slightly warm UHT milk, fruit, water or fruit juice, bread if it hasn't gone stale
Unlimited amounts of fruit
Dinner choices include salad, cereal (as per breakfast), sandwiches, or any leftovers if you were smart enough to cook a lot on a power day

Non Power days are testing and often result in going out for dinner or ordering in. Luckily ordering in is not such a temptation, since the lack of street names makes it particularly difficult for any delivery services to actually find me.

I'm living in the hope that there is an end in sight to this horrible diet, if not by non power days being eradicated, at least by the addition of a gas cylinder. I'm not holding my breath though ...

Just an average week in Kampala

Another week of the ups and downs of life in Kampala!

The week started on a serious down as a serious downer as I was struck down by the lurgy. On Monday morning I wasn't feeling quite myself. By the time I had delivered a mental maths test literally doubled over with stomach cramps I decided it was time to give in and go home. The rest of the day was lost in sleep and unpleasantries I won't explain in detail! On the upside, I have discovered there is a female doctor at the surgery who just gets on with it and treats you, without any inquisitions or inappropriate sarcastic comments - what a delight! Also, a friend explained to me how you are actually supposed to collect the samples. How was I supposed to know? Nobody ever talks about it - I am enlightened!

On Tuesday I started to recover and lost myself in a world of books and movies. I found 'Made in Dagenham' on my shelf (I must have subconsciously wanted a visit down memory lane the day I bought that one - maybe to remind myself how fortunate I am to live in the salubrious neighbourhood of Bukoto!?!) For those of you who don't know, I started my teaching career there. I can't say I look back on that time with rose tinted glasses. Sure, it's near enough to London, as long as you don't mind a ten minute bus ride to the 'eafway (Dagenham Heathway Underground station if you don't speak Dagenhamese), followed by an hour long ride through over twenty stations on the dilapidated District Line. And if you couldn't face the epic journey into town, then you could always entertain yourself by watching cars burning on the Safeway Car Park. The borough kindly provided us with affordable 'key worker' accommodation - a converted car park nestled between two tower blocks. I have never felt like more of a foreigner or outsider - when I went into shops and spoke in my dulcet northern tones, I was regarded with stranger looks than a muzungu in a remote Ugandan village. Anyway I digress ... back to the movie. I had no idea that the women of Dagenham were so instrumental in bringing about the Equal Pay for women act. I enjoyed watching these brave women fight for what was right and am not surprised that the feisty women of this area managed such a feat!

By Wednesday I was well on the road to recovery and enjoyed celebrating a friend's birthday at a Mexican restaurant. I ordered sangria and it came in a vase. She was also served a very special cake - it's amazing what can be done with a bit of icing these days!

Back in school, I have been surprised by how innocent my Year Sixes are. I'm not sure whether it's the cultural differences or whether they just have a different vocabulary, but they have certainly not giggled at the same things I did when I was eleven. At the start of the year, I read aloud from 'Godnight Mister Tom' and there was barely a snigger at the mention of poor little Willie. Yesterday, I was teaching the kids about Blogs and had to spell out the pun of Blogroll - a gag that most English eleven year olds would get in a second. We have been using calculators in maths for sometime now and the kids have been experimenting with spelling out the usual words - hello, shell, oil and so forth. I don't think my student was expecting to be congratulated when I spotted he had 58008 displayed on his screen. I said it was fine as long as he could write me a 3 step problem leading to that answer!

Fast forward to the weekend please!

Oh my - someone's in for a happy birthday!

Oh dear - have just noticed my vase of sangria is chipped!

Kitchen Nightmares

Uganda has attracted a few celebrity visitors over the past couple of years. The Comic Relief team came to donate mosquito nets to those in need, Steven Fry trekked the gorillas and last year I saw a documentary where Joanna Lumley traced the Source of the Nile without ever picking up a speck of orange dust on her pristine white linen trousers. As far as I am aware though, Gordon Ramsey has yet to pay a visit. I think he could make a bumper edition of 'Kitchen Nightmares'. After the weekend's horrific breakfast experience, here is my rant, albeit with fewer expletives. 

Know your client base  
If a client enters a restaurant at 1pm on a Saturday and requests a full English breakfast, a juice, water and coffee, there is a fairly large probability that they are nursing a hangover and in need of sustenance now now! Their patience levels, therefore, may be lower than usual and excessive waiting time may induce a temporarily psychotic state of mind. At this point, it is also advisable to change the background music as a 5 track instrumental pan pipes CD on repeat can trigger feelings of despair in the customer.

Research your menu
Shakespeare famously said that 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet', meaning that it doesn't matter what something is called. Fine for star-crossed lovers separated by old family fueds, but the same sentiment is not true of potatoes. If I order a dish containing potato wedges, I am expecting something thick chunky chips. What I am not expecting is a boiled potato cut in two. Apologising and offering to cut the potato into wedge shapes does not help at this point.

Cooking and preparation
Toast may be made from bread, but it has undergone some important irreversible chemical changes. Firstly, the colour changes to a richer, darker shade. Secondly, the texture is stiffer and crunchier and therefore a better base for baked beans or scrambled egg. Warmed bread, however, will go cold again and get increasingly soggy and does not taste good under baked beans.
Tinned mushrooms should never, ever be used. They are slimy and tasteless. If you do continue to insist on serving this evil substance, they should at least be cooked and served hot.
Likewise baked beans, bacon, sausage and egg should also be served piping hot.
If the customer orders scrambled egg, tomatoes and beans, the chance are that they do not want a Spanish omelet and bacon. Just a thought ...

Note the difference between the pale bread on the left and the golden toast on the right!

I do feel a little guilty for ranting about this, bearing in mind that the waitress and chefs are serving food they do not eat themselves. They have not grown up eating in expensive restaurants or even mid-priced coffee shops as this was. They are poorly paid, have long working hours and may not have had a whole lot of training. All the same, there are days when you just need a good fry-up!

Light meals and an abundance of wine

It's been a while since I have written about food, so I think I can be excused for bringing it up again!
Secondly, food and wine certainly featured largely in the trip, so it would be rude not to mention it!

The first thing you should know about South African cuisine is that when you see 'Light Meals' on the menu it means nothing of the sort. I'm not sure what the difference between a 'Light Meal' and a standard meal is, as they both tend to come on plates the size of dustbin lids, except that there is perhaps a little more lettuce in the lighter option! I'm not quite sure why we never seemed to grasp this fact and spent most of the holiday feeling stuffed full, albeit of good, rich food.

Just a starter before the main feature!

Many of my friends here talk about how they miss McDonalds, but since the nearest 'Golden Arches' are over 3000 km away in Cairo, it's just a distant dream. As a veggy, I don't have these cravings, but that is not to say that I don't miss a few Western treats. My first port of call in Cape Town was not Table Mountain or Cape Point, but the Haagen-Dazs  cafe at the Waterfront!

 We all enjoyed more than our fair share of South African wine, sampling them along the way. I even enjoyed the day I was designated driver as this still did not stop me from drinking in the stunning mountainous scenery around Stellenbosch and Franschoek.

Hmmm not a bad vintage!

All gone!

Believe it or not this non-alcoholic!

Franschoek

Mum - you're supposed to sip it!

A good spot for a light lunch!

Vineyards

The Bukoto Market Diet

I'm not quite ready for a diet of rice and beans!

Times are hard this month, what with paying lots of deposits for my Christmas holiday in South Africa and a 'bank error NOT in my favour', so it's time to tighten those purse-strings a little. Kampala is nowhere near as cheap as you would imagine. Financial experts may measure the rate of inflation in terms of the price of a barrel of oil or a kilo of grain,  but I have slightly different criteria. Since I arrived in Uganda in August 2008, an average bottle of wine has risen from about 12 000 Shillings to around 24 000. A 50% increase over two years is a big hike up in anybody's book. A litre of petrol is just under a pound - which is just about what many Ugandans earn for a hard day's labour. Translate that into Sterling and if you earn 25 000 a year, it's like paying 68.50 a litre! You could fuel your car with Dom Perignon for less!

Mmmmmmm - matooke!

Luckily for me, I was born a stingy Northerner, and I have a whole host of penny pinching ways. It's time to collect all the empty soda and beer bottles and get the deposits back from the shop. Next stop, the book exchange to sell any old books I don't think I'll read again. As for shopping, I'm going to try to avoid the expensive supermarkets for a week or two. Weetabix is a bargain breakfast at 4500 Sh a box, as opposed to 10 000 Sh (about $5 US) for a small bag of muesli.
Try as I might, I still can't develop a taste for matooke or posho. I do, however, have a cracking selection of recipes that can be made with a few stock cupboard items and fresh ingredients from the market. We have a great selection of fresh herbs available here and the the fruit and vegetable stalls burst with sun-ripened juicy fruits.
What do you think of my sample menu?
To drink
Freshly squeezed passion juice
Nile Gold
Uganda Waragi (not for the faint hearted)
Pre-dinner snack
Fresh guacamole with lightly toasted herby pitta bread on the side
Starters
Carrot and coriander soup
Main course
Aubergine and tomato bake accompanied by French beans
Dessert
A selection of tropical fresh fruits including pineapple, mango, passion fruit and watermelon

Yummy!

Food, glorious food ...

Mmmmm - my favourite pudding from home

I think it’s a sign of old age that my mid-week ‘hangover’ is caused not by copious glasses of wine, but by an overdose of sugar and rich food. Back in the day, I would nurse a sore head and swear I would never touch another drop again ... until the next time. Yesterday, as pay day FINALLY arrived – yes there was far too much month left at the end of this pay cheque, a friend and I treated ourselves to a slap-up meal. Home-made bread, delicious pasta followed by the best sticky toffee pudding since the one that comes from Cartmel in the Lake District. But the real laugh of the night came from a different source. I have always enjoyed perusing menus in foreign parts in order to take in the linguististic boo boos. Here was no exception – the menu offered ‘Square spaghetti’ which must be a specialty the Italians haven’t even thought of. Then there was the ‘Pasta Surprise – made according to the chef’s mood’ – well if my experiences of the world of waitressing and hospitality are anything to go by, then this should be avoided at all costs. I wouldn’t like to imagine what Gordon Ramsey would cook up in a fiery temper – maybe I’ll take the risk next time though!

International Day

“I know, let’s have a normal week. You know, one where we just teach our lessons all week and nothing exciting happens!” was the cry from the staffroom. Our school year is jam packed with special themed days to make the year more exciting for the kids. Barely a week goes past without something out of the ordinary happening. If we’re not rehearsing for a school production then it’s Literacy Week and if it’s not that then it’s Earth Day or something! This is all great, but it doesn’t half get the kids hyped up. Sure, we all enjoyed honing our mental mathematics skills on the worldwide online game for World Maths Day, but it was a bit disappointing for those who didn’t have internet at home. Athletics Day is great for a select few, but for many kids, it seemed to be an exhausting and disappointing day. And the less said about Invention Convention the better (OK I will say it ... I HATE Invention Convention – 2 weeks of clutter and confusion in the classroom, where the entire class are expected to invent something completely new and functional out of a bit of cardboard and cellotape. It can’t be much fun for the kids either, as they are told that ‘no, you can’t make a robot out of a shoebox and water bottles and expect it to work’, or, ‘no, you just stole that idea from the ‘Wallace and Gromit’ clip we just watched’).
Anyway, I digressed. This week we had my favourite school event of the year, International Day. Yes I was a little grumpy first thing in the morning as I confiscated a Fez type hat, a Masai stick for clubbing lions, a German flag and an Indian scarf … all before 9am! However, as we gathered on the field for the Parade of Nations, my spirits lifted. Children came to school in their traditional national dress or the colours of the flag, then found other children from their country. We have representatives from all over the globe. Some nations are represented more strongly than others – while the UK, India, Uganda and perhaps South Africa stood out as the biggest groups, on small boy held up the flag for Nepal alone!
Our stomachs grew bigger as the morning wore on. I was impressed that Year 4 were scheduled to go to the Asia tent first as we could get first pickings on the food! By 10am I had gorged myself on falafel, hummus, dips of curry, spring rolls, mini-pavlovas and whatever else I could lay my hands on. My hand was decorated with a henna tattoo and I tried to burn off a few of the calories with an attempt at belly dancing. So in each of the tents, we had a little ‘taste’ of the continent.
In the afternoon, we sang and danced the ‘Waving Flag’ World Cup song so many times it nearly drove us mental. The kids went home happy and energetic. The day’s success could be measured in the children’s smiles!