The Free Speech Not-So-Special

Yes! Seven people participated directly in the poll thingy whatever invitation to participate I threw out into the e-pond a couple of weeks ago. I think that's... oh, wait, it's not a record for the blog. Between us, may I confess that I am proud of how dependably poorly these Mikocheni Report Polls perform? It's like a perverse love letter from the silent readership. Bless y'all.

So, the results: three of you think there might be something to some decent policing of the online dialogue. Two of you think it's a horrendous idea to even bring up and another two of you are dedicated fans of the domesticated bird. Finally, and most importantly, nobody voted for actual regulation of free speech online, not even for fun to bait this cranky liberal. Either that means you guys all rock, or it means the blog is only read by seven folk who have a liberal bent- both of which options spell happiness with a capital Freedom.

Erm... oh yeah, the caveats and other stuff. The poll on the right there is not statistically representative of anything at all except perhaps an abiding love for chicken. Live long and prosper. Also: special smushy kisses of gratitude to the folks who sent healing vibes my way. Y'all the reason why I occasionally get cool free stuff thrown in my direction. More about that next post, neh? Mwah.

Yes, But Have You Considered Stew?

I had a long post drafted about stew. This was for several reasons- in part to get the blog restarted after too long in hiatus, and also in response to some emails suggesting that I go back to more lifestyle content to lighten things up. And to have fun: writing about Important Stuff is all well and good but there is joy in the world in for me one of its important manifestations is through cuisine. I dream of tasting uni and collecting cookware the way some people dream about owning mansions or achieving fame.

But it was not to be. The computer managed to lose a soulful contemplation of the pleasures of stew that took me hours to draft. It is irretrievable from both the machine and my memory, sadly. Unlike writers of yore, those of us who depend on computers for our craft are clearly at risk of losing important piece of work at the blink of Tanesco or a hiccup from Sasatel. And boy do they blink and hiccup a lot. So this re-post is really in honor of Anonymous who alerted me to the fact that the first post was a dud. Here goes:

"there is no text."- Sorry, dog ate my homework.

"Is this an experiment?" No, but thanks for the idea...

"Well, hope you pay me, if it is."... you don't happen to be from Nairobi do you?

"And, yes, i have." Good for you. The contemplation of stew is a philosophical exercise everyone should attempt at least once. I would be interested in hearing your conclusions on the matter.

Ugali Na Dagaa: A Contemplation.

Who knew that something as docile as ugali could be a cultural conversation? While I don't really pay it much mind, I am vaguely aware that folks who haven't grown up on the continent find it difficult to embrace. Ugali is not a taste that is easily acquired as an adult :) Apparently adding dagaa as the relish makes it particularly heinous. I have heard quite a number of people express their puzzlement over this apparent delicacy.

I can kind of understand how a sub-par lump of ugali made from over-refined flour that has been sitting in a silo half the year coupled with a watery mishandled dagaa stew might fail to convert a newbie to the delights of the ugali-and-preserved-fish combination. I hope this essay goes some way to convincing you to try again.

Ugali na dagaa is definitely one of my very favorite comfort foods. I love it in almost all of its iterations: strong, stiff Sukuma ugali with larger Lake Tanganyika dagaa, Zanzibari Ugali wa Mhogo with Dagaa "wabichi", sauce on the side, Ghanaian Kenkey with a tin of sardines and fresh tomato-onion-chili relish, flaky pap with pilchards in spicy chakalaka... I would even go so far as admitting that my favorite version is rough-grained cornmeal crispy-skin ugali with a side of steam/fried cabbage and crispy fried mackerel, for sentimental reasons, although that might be stretching the "dagaa" criteria a little. But then I would have to consider the magical combination of oversized Lake Tanganyike fried sato so fresh that their eyes (the best part) drip with unctuous richness over ugali steamed so long that it separates softly without leaving sticky residue on your fingers...

If you want to adventure down the road of ugali-na-dagaa cuisine, here is a list of tips and opinions that I have accrued over many years spent in pursuit of the ultimate ugali experience:

1. Know your ugali: there are lots of different grains and roots that ugali can be made from. The concept is simple: flour, water, mix, cook until desired consistency is reached and starch is cooked through. This simple formula hides a complex world of ingredient selection and techniques that can turn an unpromising ugly sister of a dish into a real cinderella for the palate. For the more adventurous, I would recommend trying cassava flour ugali with a bit of cornmeal (dona) thrown in for textural integrity. Also good: wholemeal corn ugali, sorghum ugali, millet ugali and combinations thereof with cornmeal. I have yet to try mixing in groundnuts with the starch but it is on the To Try list. Some South African restaurants offer interesting mixes where the pap is flavored with things like cheese or chilli or whatever. Lovely innovation, I am sure, but as a purist I am admittedly skeptical.

2. Know your texture: all the ugali I have eaten in Zanzibar has been cooked to a soft consistency, while the ugali I have eaten in the lake zone is usually stiff enough to be used as a weapon. There are regional variations in preferences for texture, and it is generally wise to know what works for you. For example, I can't really abide the southern African flaky ugali technique, and definitely have a great respect for cooks who can put a crust on their (medium-stiff) ugali. crunchy crust is always good in my books!

3. Know your cook: Ugali-making is a skill that not every cook has mastered. First up: ugali served in local restaurants in Dar have to balance the expectations of clients who come from all over the country, so it is generally the blandest version there is: medium, white flour, nothing interesting going on. However, if you are lucky enough to travel around, then you have to try the regional variations at the local 'hoteli'. Tips on where to find truly good stuff: find where the men hang out to eat and drink (i.e. where they go to escape from their domestic arrangements). Usually that's where the local brew is the nicest, and the cook has mastered the art of serving an ugali that meets the local critics' approval.

Of course, the ultimate ugali is the homecook's ugali. It is like the curry test: you can eat them in restaurants, sure, but if you eat a homecooked curry the improvement in quality is dramatic. The 'home table' is where an eater can truly experience pinnacles of ugali cookery. My best ugali experience in Zanzibar was the result of asking a rather indulgent waiter at my hotel to personally cook me some ugali wa muhogo and dagaa wabichi with a side of greens for my evening meal. Zanzibari hospitality can really be quite fantastic. Which brings me to another tip: for some reason, I have generally been served better ugali by male cooks than female cooks although this is not always the case. I suspect it has to do with the muscle-power required to stir an ugali into consistent smoothness and cookedness. So beware: if the cook looks a little runty and underfed you might be gambling on his or her ability to produce an ugali that has been properly subdued.

3. Know your fishy relish: okay, so obviously dagaa are a traditional accompaniment because they keep well and so can travel the huge distances between oceans and lakes across the region without the aid of refrigeration. Same with the smoked and dried larger fish that are now hard to source as tastes change. While it is easy to get Mwanza contacts to source you a bucketful of fresh sato that arrive dripping with condensation off the Precision Air flights, getting a proper-good butterflied smoked fish isn't so simple. But I digress. There are many different dagaa to be had: Lake Tanganyika produces premium large ones that are sweet-fleshed and easy to clean before cooking and also don't remain impossibly hard when cooked. Then there is the range of products you get from Lake Victoria in a variety of sizes and quality. Finally there is the ocean fished dagaa where they dry those little fishies that you can spot jumping with joy, usually at sunset, if you are having a sundowner anywhere along the bay in Dar. In-between might be local variations of dagaa fished from ponds and lakes dotting the countryside.

Generally speaking, the larger the dagaa, the better. This is because it is easier to get the guts off the fish which prevents the bitter taste. It is virtually impossible to gut a small dagaa and have anything left over worth keeping which makes for bitter stews. Also, the bigger ones don't dry as hard as the smaller fish, so they absorb liquids better when cooked and soften up considerably. On the coast, the dagaa 'wabichi' are only sundried for a short time before being sold to prevent the overdrying that results in tough fishlets.

4. How do you feel about fermented animal proteins? Part of the flavor profile of ugali and dagaa is whatever bacterial and yeast action happens during the preservation process. This means that dagaa is a strong taste. It packs an umami punch complete with its fermented funk, and that's is part of it's status as a delicacy. If you like things like cheese, kimchi, caviar, canned mackerel, greek yogurt, liver/kidneys, soy sauce, pickled herring etc. then dagaa might just work for you. If most of the above items make you recoil in fear and loathing, skip the dagaa and go for another side dish.

5. The cook angle, again: listen, don't eat ugali and dagaa in certain parts of the country. Like, say, if you are on retreat on some gorgeous hill in the Kilimanjaro region. Or doing fieldwork deep in Mpwapwa in Dodoma. Dagaa make sense in regions surrounding freshwater lakes, in areas with lots of estuaries, places that border the ocean. So naturally that is where the best dagaa handling is likely to happen. With a bit of research and savoir-faire, it is entirely possible to wangle invitations from the right kind of home tables in pursuit of a good ugali-na-dagaa.

6. The devil is in the details: When that steaming hot ugali comes, there are a number of things to consider. First is the accompaniments- I strongly recommend using whatever variation of pilipili is offered to highlight the flavor profile of the dagaa. Also, as this is fish, a squeeze of lemon somewhere in the process brings a little pep to the party. Finally, a side of greens is a good mediator between the intensity of the dagaa and the subtleties of the ugali. Cabbage works, but really some bitter greens cooked simply really pop- chards, kales, mchicha, kisamvu, sweet potato leaves... the options are endless.

If you are new to the game, one final caution: only ever the right hand can be used to eat ugali truly authentically, and yes this does affect how you taste the dish. Especially in shared plate situations. Knowing how to pinch off a piece of steaming ugali, scoop up the sauce/greens/pili pili and pop that in your mouth, chew, swallow without burning your tongue is part of the experience. This requires as much practice as learning how to use chopsticks correctly, or any other utensil. In some areas it is alright to roll the ball of ugali in your palm first, put in a dimple with your thumb and use that to scoop up the relishes. In others, using anything more than the first two knuckles of your fingers is a sign of complete heathenness, and uncouth scooping is especially horrifying. Learning how to navigate the variations in style is a huge part of the fun of ugali cuisine.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you that I simply do not cook my own ugali and dagaa. I have learned through years of kitchen disasters that I lack the touch with flour-based cookery. Can't bake, can't make chapatis worth eating, can't cook an ugali worth serving. I suspect this will have a depressing effect on my brideprice ;) I am quite content to outsource the preparation to experts, which is how I know a good ugali when I eat one.

Since it is Saturday and I am home, The World's Best Housekeeper is currently preparing the treat that we both enjoy immensely. She has just ground some dried muhogo in the coffee mill fixture of the blender, special stock that she brings me from the family farm in Mtwara every year from her annual holiday. I hoard those little dry sticks like the finest beluga, and only ever share them with My Lady of the Refined Smiles.

Our special flour will be carefully mixed with a robo or nusu of the duka's freshest cornmeal since we are out of dona, and then transformed into a medium stiff ugali. Which we will have with dagaa, naturally, of which we keep a stock of various types and sizes in the freezer. The hard part is going to be deciding: should we cook the dagaa with okra, or with nyanya chungu? And which green this time? I think I am leaning towards steamed mchicha with a hint of onion, but it depends on what TWBH is feeling. I forgot to ask her to bring some morning-tapped Mnazi to wash it all down and give a pleasant buzz to the afternoon as we gossip and nap. To properly respect the ugali is to know that sometimes a little lie-down after the meal is a natural outcome of the process.

If you consider yourself a connoiseur of things ugali, I would love to hear from you about any lessons, techniques etc. that I should investigate. And if you have ever wondered what the heck there might be to appreciate about the unpromising lump that has just landed on your plate with a side of sauce and some smelly little fish, I hope I have convinced you not to run off screaming. As for me, I am waiting for the day I make it over to West Africa to sample their iterations although to be honest I am just jonesing for some Kenkey. Ghanaian in Dar es Salaam? Hello! We could be friends... ;)

Happy eating.

The Weekly Sneak: Cooking Men

Here is the theory: four weeks in a month, four columns. Makes it ideal for a rotation across three or four focus areas: one political piece a month, one social commentary, one feminist and one for whatever burning issue has been hitting the headlines that month. The reality goes more like this: staring at the screen, sifting through half-finished word documents hoping for inspiration, and a lot of hand-wringing. Last night in the wee hours I was staring at a document that had the word "tanesco" on it only to realize that writing that piece would rob me of the will to live. So I gave myself permission to have fun. Coming soon to an East African near you:

... on the opposite end of the spectrum the forces of African conservative fundamentalism are horrified by this creeping trend: a man, a self-respecting African man, in the kitchen? Good grief. What will these insufferable liberals ask for next! Equal opportunities and basic human rights for all? The world is going straight to hell in a kikapu. They are right to be scared, I am afraid. The world as we have known it for generations is going to hell in a finely handcrafted vessel made of sustainable organic local materials. And I, for one, am happily waving it on its journey to oblivion.

I have been neglecting the feminist discussion on the blog, as someone pointed out recently. Time to go back to my roots. Also, I might have been listening to James Brown's "This Is a Man's World" on high rotation for a couple of hours. It is a man's world, yes it is. But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing, without...

Vegetable Love*

Look at that beauty. It's the size of a small child. We ate it's brothers and sisters over the past few weeks and they were sweet and juicy and hung so low I could literally lie underneath one and wait for gravity to take its course. Paradise...

Sorry about the silence on the blog. It has been a strange month- to be honest I am still trying to synchronize my writing bursts with the Tanesco electricity schedule and it's not going as well as it could be. In order to soothe my frustration, I have come up with a new obsession: vegetarian cooking. Whenever my muse is not in the mood, which is a bit too often these days, I spend the online time perusing the interwebs for recipes using cabbage, using magnificent purple eggplants and surly, aggressive mint.

I doubt that My Lady of the Verdant Smiles has bought greens in years. Like, years. And no, I can't name the thingy in the bottom left corner as I have no idea what it is but I can tell you it tastes about as good as an unnameable leafy green can hope to.

I am, metaphorically-speaking, drowning in curry sauces and stir-fry noodles, freshly roasted groundnut pastes, garlic and ginger and out-of-season mangoes. Don't get me started on the things a girl could do with a courgette or two, some spring onions and mounds of knobbly potatoes with thick red skins... That's it. When I grow up I'm going to be an urban farmer, just like my folks.

The black dot in the middle of the picture is a bumblebee. I have never seen an actual pumpkin show up in the patch. I think someone needs to be fired for lazy pollination.

Stole the title of this post from Barbara Crooker.

You Are What You Eat?

Food has been on my mind a lot lately. Over the last month I have fielded questions about what makes up authentic Tanzanian food. It's a pretty interesting question, culturally-speaking and I think it can probably be answered about 100 different ways... Octopus curry, for example, might be common on the coast but you'll be lucky to find a Lake Zoner who will cheerfully eat sea food. Best way to figure the answer out is probably to just travel the country and eat. Simple.

But if you can't get around it all, Chef-in-training Issa has put together this impressive food blog in Kiswahili. Hidden between posts about apple-carving and thai dishes are excellent recipes for some staples like maizemeal ugali, chapati, maandazi, dagaa etc. The man loves his food, and judging by his following he's an institution :)

In the Deep Midwinter or Goodbye July

Where does the time go? We're at the bottom end of winter with the end of July upon us and the sweet, cool days of 23 degrees centigrade about to roll over to a warmer August. Here's some stuff I have glimpsed here and there:

1. New Blogfriends: These guys are so interesting, I am embarrassed to only have come across them recently through some mild cyberstalking. And the cheerful Chick About Town comes as close to a lifestyle blog as I have seen in Bongoland.

2. This just in: Dr. Slaa fell in the shower yesterday and injured his arm. The World's Best Housekeeper is already wearing her cynical look. I'm not sure if she's implying foul play on the side of the establishment, or a bid for sympathy on the part of the good doctor. I guess we're not the most trusting votership on the planet... eh bwana pole. Endeavour to keep relatively intact until October would you please, sir?

3. The Steak of Ages, the one that can vanquish the cravings of the bloodthirstiest carnivore, was recently found hiding at a supermarket in the 'hood. Slapped it on a smoking pan with nothing but pepper and rosemary. Taste test subjects have reported extremely positive responses on several occasions. I suspect the secret is fat, happy grassfed Tanzanian beef and a little Halaal treatment. Quest continues: is there a joint in the city that can top this experience? Stay tuned.

4. Does anyone else think that perhaps this company should have aimed for a different acronym? Feel free to suggest slogans for them in the comments section ;)

5. Speaking of carnal pleasures, Karambezi has such seriously good burgers that they might be giving Palm Beach Hotel a run for their feta cheese. Further research will be conducted. In the meantime, here's a visual equivalent of Easy Listening to close out the month. Contemplate it while stroking your brain cells, and be sure to have a relaxing weekend.

Quick and Dirty Restaurant Review: Boodles

So last Friday, La Dee says to me: "Russian Ballet in town. Shall we brave it?" Hm. You have to understand, my tastes in art are rather particular and entirely limited by visceral feeling. I get: syncopated beats, heavy brass and percussive strings, electric guitar, the color blue, righteous vocals. I don't get: ballet, woodwinds, chinese opera, italian opera, modern painting. Still, you have to try to expand your boundaries...

Luckily for us, the tickets were sold out. Plan B turned out to be excellent- since we were in town we were at liberty to explore Boodles Bar and Restaurant at JM Mall. Their ads have been teasing us with the promise of Creole food* for a while now, and we finally had a chance to see if they would have some jambalaya and gumbo, blackened catfish, jazz and moonshine. We went for the A la Carte menu.

I was going to write a long review but I haven't the heart for it. Here, instead, is the condensation:

A la Carte menu = Unacceptable substitutions. Unacceptable omissions. Dried out fish, ugh. Good vegetables. Exceptional honey mustard dressing. Decent salad. Middling dining room. Charming view. Suitably heavy, matching cutlery. Clean linens, if musty. Decent staff. Dismal lighting. Nice South African wine list. Surprisingly manageable prices. Maniacal air-conditioning. Soulless atmosphere. Overall: okay, I guess, for a conversational dinner where the food should not distract. But the wine is Not Box. That's the best I can do.

*Yeah, right. And the jazz? Not so much either.

Lighter Fare.

I'm taking break from that political stuff today. Exhaling, if you will. So instead I offer a discussion on burgers. I have been reading a lot of American food blogs (don't ask, its a long story) and the burger has been undergoing a major Renaissance for the past couple of years. It is one of my favorite junk foods, and the best thing about it is that it tastes better made at home than it ever can from a shop. Trust me on this.

If you are going to buy a half-way decent burger in Bongo, where is the place to go? The truth is, there are not that many places. What the South African chains do to burgers should be criminalized. Steers in South Africa= bliss. Steers in Dar es Salaam= torture. And I don't buy that crap about inferior Tanzanian beef being the problem- if you don't know how to source good ingredients you have no business being a restaurateur.

There is a home-grown solution that some folks swear by: Hot Box, at the Morocco junction opposite the new Zain Starship. The origin story, as I heard it, is exactly the kind of origin story that makes for good fast food: Mama Hotbox had a great recipe for burgers that she served her family. As a result, when they moved out of home the Hotbox Kids couldn't find anything decent under the moniker 'burger' that they wanted to put in their mouths. And a business idea was born: how about a food-truck style operation that served Mama Hotbox-style burgers?

I have no idea how accurate this story is, but it is cute. And the burgers: not too shabby. The secret of a Hot Box burger is that crazy relish/coleslaw/ketchup mess of a topping that they put on it. It is sloppy and delicious... and it means that if you let your hotbox burger grow cold, it becomes revolting. Still, a far better burger than you can get at any of the chain restaurants in town, and cheaper too. Price matters: a burger, like beer, is democratic food- plebeian food. You can fancy it up all you want, and that can be fun, but in essence it remains stubbornly unpretentious.

Which brings me to the other two burgers that have given Hot Box a run for their money according to my taste-buds. I once had a fat, juice take-away from Captain Ali's at Slipway which came with really good fries and- the real prize- a pickle spear. The bun was toasted but still moist. The cheese was real cheddar. The tomato and onion were on the side so they didn't wilt into a disgusting mess by the time I got home. I could have married the cook that night from sheer enchantment. Been trying to recreate the experience ever since, with no luck. I think that, like all chefs in Tanzania, my faceless burger angel moved on to greener pastures. Wherefore art thou, o grill chef? I pine.

The other, more recent experience, was another take-away. It came from D.B.s in Mlimani city: the beef was decent (i.e. it didn't taste defrosted), the toppings included pickle slices (there is a theme here) and they slathered the thing with ketchup...and mustard! Next time you are up there with a craving for something satisfyingly unhealthy, do yourself a favor: by-pass Marry Brown. Your mouth will thank you.

Oh. Yeah. I suppose I could attach some pictures. I'll put that on my blogging to-do list.

The obvious fate of unattended cookies

I got some awesome, home-made cookies yesterday. They were baked by a budding Independent Womyn who charged me TShs 8400 for the pleasure, and hand-delivered in homely tupperware with a hand-written thank-you note taped to the lid. Now that's what I call customer service. Sweet, chocolate chip cookies with the fragrant brown-sugar smell of freshly baked goodness. You know, heart-felt cookies? Nothing in the world tastes like heart-felt cookies. I am not good at maths but: I got twelve cookies and resold two (300 TShs mark-up) for beer money. I gave away one cookie willingly, and one cookie unwillingly and ate one. Twelve minus five is seven, but I got home with only four freshly-baked cookies...

When I was Alma's age, I was three years away from selling cigarettes in the dormitories at my high -school to make enough money to afford the toasted sandwiches and hot chocolate that the boys sold us illegally from downstairs. Alma's cookies are not that kind of contraband, they are nice-girl cookies, everything-I-wish-I-could-have-been cookies, and one of my (perpetually hungry) colleagues stole three of them. On the other hand, it took over six months for someone to help themselves to the lonely peppermint teabag that used to live on the corner of my desk. Mxiiiiii!

How you vote is how you eat.

I already wrote about one aspect of the intersection between class and food- arguing of course in favor of the elitist view that quality matters. But food security is undeniably a tricky thing. I remember reading a fairly recent article where a government employee made a statement along the lines of "Cassava should be the staple food of Tanzania." Excuse the lack of attribution- but clearly this is a wishful statement rather than an actual government policy. However, it does point out to the problems of treating food in a utilitarian manner. Common sense suggests, for example, that for our modern mass society to really prosper we should all be mostly vegetarian with a lot less animal protein in our diets. But this is not culturally feasible at all for many of us, your truly included. Since I tilt to the left, the best I can do is compromise the way that any good liberal will by trying to 'eat smart'- whatever that might mean. And according to this interesting experiment in social surveys, there is a relationship between a person's food and their politics.

Try A Little Tenderness

We just got four freshly slaughtered chickens from my cousin Mooreen*, who raises these little babies with minimal interference. Not full organic perhaps, but the only shots they get are when they are chicks. After that they experience nothing but good feeding and time to grow. She raises them for something like twice the time a commercial chicken takes because they don't have growth hormones in them. Someone, finally, cares.

What makes this interesting is the maths: she sells her chickens for about 2000/= cheaper than store bought. That is right: they are raised healthier, for longer...and still sold cheaper. Cooking them is a pleasure: forty minutes in a hot bath of briny liquid and Chicken One was already trying to fall apart. Fat content: negligible. Chicken Two and Chicken Three got the oven treatment and the gravy they released was quite heavenly. Fat content: negligible. Chicken Four awaits dismemberment and storage in the freezer.

The fat content thing is not about dieting, in case you were wondering. After all, I consider freshly rendered (preferably young and organic) lard to be one of the sensory pleasures no sane person should forgo completely. My rejection of chicken fat is quite simple: for the longest time I couldn't stand to eat the stuff. It tasted quite fowl to me. Heh. But seriously folks: I don't know what Interchick is putting in their chickens. I can taste it, I don't like it, and I am pretty sure it is compromising the genetically encoded longevity that Dad was kind enough to pass on.

Moorine's chickens though: they are young, and taste soft and sweet like a young chicken should. They taste like they breathed fresh air, and had a swift and humane death. Their drumsticks are elongated and their thighs trim: these guys were not just sitting around. And the innards that came with them (gizzards n' livers) are purple-pink and firm with none of the disgusting degeneration of those mass-produced inmates. When I eat such a happy, respectfully-raised chicken, I feel happy and respectful.

All of this long-windedness is to say: yeah. even in Paradise, (an abysmally poor country by official accounts) you can raise nourishing and humane animal protein. Affordably. Nice, eh?

*Holler if you want Chicken Moorine's number. Although she raises 300-500 chickens per harvest, these babies are so popular that pre-booking is necessary. Size is inconsistent: sometimes they are big, sometimes they aren't- just like in nature. One thing they always are, though, is palatable.

A Hunger for Taste

Since our group had decided not to leave the Busara Festival grounds to find dinner, we had some snacks to keep us going. Three paper plates later we were satisfied and left the litter on the ground next to us for later disposal- the festival organizers had forgotten to put bins out. I was zoning out mildly at that point, I think the Ugandan troupe was on (great drumming but seriously chaotic transitions) when a couple of young boys came and sat near us and to the front. I thought I was imagining things when a small hand darted out to grab a water bottle, quick as a snake. It was empty, although the paper plates were not: three quarters of a puffy naan, one and a half vegetable samosas, chilli sauce- the remains of our meal.

An older boy, this one alone, came and sat to our left. He had been carting a crate around collecting empty bottles but he set it down and sat on it, ostensibly to enjoy the music. This time I was ready. Sure enough, he casually reached over to appropriate the samosas but found himself blocked off by the boys who had come over earlier. They had a stiff staring contest, and I have to say that the young boys were infinitely more fearsome than the teenager. He backed down. All of this happened quietly, at the very periphery of our group, easily missed.

Just that afternoon we had had a discussion about the crappy food critics in the papers. As I declaimed from my soapbox about the fluctuating quality of food in Paradisan restaurants, someone brought me up short and said that maybe it wasn’t appropriate to worry about things like food criticism in a country where many people can’t afford one balanced and nourishing meal per day. Point taken: perhaps food criticism can be painted as self-indulgent bourgeois decadence. But then again, perhaps not. Ironically, we battled it out over a fantastic lunch at a spot overlooking the sea.

There is a deeper point to be made here. When is it appropriate to care about what we put in our mouths, to make that a mission? Food is one of the most democratic of sensory experiences, and is the stuff of life itself. I have only ever been truly, deeply hungry once to date, and I cannot recommend it. The twist, of course, is that at the time I was surrounded by relatives who deliberately let me starve. I suspect they enjoyed it, our little family iteration of class warfare. Sure, food is about meeting a basic need. But it is also about the politics of a clan, a society. When I ate again in friendlier surroundings, after my encounter with starvation, I shared three tiny fish over steamed bananas with two other women. Barely a fingertip of salt, and I don’t know if we even had cooking oil, but the love with which it was seasoned made it one of the unforgettable meals of my life.

There is of course the idea that food criticism belongs to those who obsess about the thickness of a home-made mayonnaise, or slurping down perfect Kobe beef burgers stuffed with blue cheese and truffles. There is a time and place for that, just as there is a time and place for hand-tooled Italian leather shoes and precision Swiss watches with kinetic mechanisms. But a true gourmand is omni-voracious and can tell you that there is as much pleasure to be found a simple soup as there is in foamed sauces.

Those boys who were scavenging our leftovers don’t have the time to give a shit about whether the pastry on the samosas they filched was crisp or soggy. That much is undeniable. In a perfect world, they would have someone to make sure they ate right. Someone should care about whether their bowl of beans had enough coconut milk, if it was too thin. Someone should remember to slip them their favorite treats whenever possible: grilled shrimp from Forodhani perhaps, or a square of halwa. Someone should love them through their palate*.

Tasting love and celebrating life through the palate- this is, in the end, what an obsession with good food is really about. I believe that even the meanest slum, the meanest village has a natural gourmet, someone who will take the time to make her ugali smoother perhaps, or his brewed beer particularly satisfying, or his stew deliciously fatty. It is a talent, like an eye for color or perfect pitch. Perhaps the real bourgeois sin is to think that that They, Those Others, are too damn Poor to appreciate the fundamental pleasure of food the way that We the Rich can apparently afford to do. Really?

* I have to plug this book: Delicious by Sherry Thomas is probably the ultimate gift for the gourmande slash romance reader in your life. Her characters’ relationships to food are poetry and philosophy all at once.

Making Stock, Taking Stock

The chicken carcass had been sitting in the fridge for three days so it seemed like the right day to make stock. Not to mention the crushing exhaustion that has been dogging me for months now demanded a little R&R if I had any hope of making the Weekly Deadline From Hell, and the packet of Tanga Fresh buttermilk in the fridge was posing a direct challenge to me: Palak Paneer. Tying it all together neatly was the borrowed copy of The Black Swan that I had started reading late last night to combat insomnia.

The Stock: One chicken carcass left over after feeding a hungry Midwest American dude last Wednesday+ One quartered red onion+ one quartered carrot+ teespoon dry sage. Boil until reduced, top with cold water, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, strain of final goodness into container for refrigeration. It turned out better than my last stock, must say, and had less icky chicken fat to strain out (what do they feed those animals?!). The meat from the carcass made a nice chicken salad brunch.

The Cheese: One packet of Tanga Fresh Mtindi+half teaspoon of sea salt. Bring to the boil, simmer for about ten minutes whtout stirring so the curds don't get too skinny. Strain to separate curds and whey, sit on your tuffet and eat. But if you want to make paneer, save curds in little tupperware container and refrigerate. Google what to do with whey, or just drink it with a pure water chaser like I did.

The Book*: Suh-weet. As your truly is undergoing a sort of personal renaissance, it has been interesting to see what grabs me in the stuff i have been reading and re-reading. This pop-philosophy book is a good one, but I will not deny that I am enjoying it for probably all of the wrong reasons: i like the author's mischief, i find the independence of thinking inspiring, the new information exhilarating if obscure, the language delicious. But I am nowhere near intellectually rigorous enough to truly understand what he is saying, especially when we get into the empirical stuff (i am unapologetically intuitive). I get it, but not in any directly applicable way. I will need to read this one a few times, maybe get one of the economists in my life to break it down for me.

What I am really reading the book for is in fact the snippets of autobiography that the author has included in the book for context. This self-professed Levantine's recollections of his childhood and the development of a sense of self, identity and agency were definitely not of the garden-variety- and I loved them.

*The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. What's on your bedside table?

Pulse

A ten-day silence qualifies as 'mild neglect' so I thought to reassure that the blog hasn't been orphaned. Just...well, mildly neglected, wandering the interwebs in a soggy nappy that should have been changed days ago, dangling an empty milk bottle. But life has been going on, and here are a few recent things to share. I should write one entry per but it is just not that kind of week.

The good life: Watched Judith Sephuma live at the Kempinski on Saturday night. It was lovely to be only 50 meters (and at times 50 cm) away from the performers. The sound mix drowned out her voice a little in favor of the instruments but other than that the music was quite delicious. The usual dry reception Paradisans gave her meant that the crowd of miscreants with whom I was hanging out had to get the party started, but when they did the dancefloor got crowded and a good time was had by all. I have to gripe, however, about the venue/event management: It could have been better. Waaay better. All I am saying is, if anyone wants to fund an outdoor performance area I have some ideas. Lets talk.

Also: found a new bookstore. Actually, it is more like a readership enhancement project ,and may I bow in awe to the folks who managed to get donor funding to run a bookshop. How didja do it? SOMA is in Regent, Mlingotini close and has a few things to offer which make it a must visit: outdoor vibandas with lighting, wireless internet and powerpoints, a bar/cafe, beautiful and quiet environs and a selection of books written by local authors and foreign authors about Paradise and her hinterlands. Also, their prices are pleasantly sane.

Snarking politics: Nothing is going on of particular interest to yours truly other than the dis-Union question. Ever since the Zenj is Baris got their panties in a knot about whether their island nation is a sovereign state or not some weeks ago, I have been tempted to kick the whole sorry mess out into the ocean. I have no idea how the Union is beneficial to Tanganyika in this day and age. Yeah, I went there! Anyways, until such a time as someone can prove to me that there is value to this cohabitation, I am quite in agreement with the isles secessionists.

Food the glorious: A sort-of-review. Went with La Dee to the Happy Dragon Restaurant (Kawe Road, just after the bridge/army offices). It was definitely some Chinese middle-cuisine. The decor included a large red velvet panel with chinese writing on one wall (maybe it said Happy Dragon?) and La Dee's favorite touch: plastic tulips on every table. Ambiance: a cross between a train station canteen, a school cafeteria and a low-end if well-lit banqueting hall, it came complete with a suspicious group of gangster/gemdealer looking guys in a corner table and shouted conversation all around.

The portions were generous, the food freshly cooked and decent (the pork chow mein was fantastic though, not too greasy and full of little pork bits). The sauce on the lemon chicken however tasted about as organic as michael jackson's nose, which was a bit of a let-down. Oh, and there was a gently poached fly in my soup but I can testify that it did not hinder the flavor one bit since i am not averse to insect proteins. Based on their performance, I can see myself going back for some take-away, especially them noodles. Otherwise, don't bother getting excited- this place is not exactly a Dining Experience.

Final score: Two-and-a-half garlicky burps.

Food? Not so much. Review? Why, yes.

Food, the neglected topic. Every good intention I had of bringing in the camera to download a bunch of pictures and compose odes to cooking went out the window when I left the damn thing at home. Instead, may I offer a restaurant review? Actually, I have been dying to do restaurant reviews for a while now. There used to be this dude who would do this thing with this nameless date he called Lady in White in one of the monthly magazines and it was part romantic suspense part restaurant review column but I haven't seen it in a while. Also, it was certainly light on the 'review' side of things since every restaurant got a thumbs up. Still, it was fun to read while it lasted.

On to the Review: Addis In Dar, Regent Estate/Mikocheni
The premier Ethiopian restaurant in Paradise, this family business has been open since sometime in the late nineties/early ohs. It is staffed by folks who know the menu in and out and don't do that nasty thing that waiters do in non-tz restaurants: talk down at the guest about the menu as though you are too timid to order anything other than chipsi-kuku. A while back someone else tried to open another Ethiopian restaurant but it died in its infancy...usilete compe! Addis in Dar is a local favorite whose clientele is mixed up- always a good thing when you can eavesdrop on expat development workers with your right ear while catching up on the latest BongeFlava gossip with your left ear.

Using local ingredients, the chefs reproduce as best they can the incredibly addictive tastes of Ethipian food. They obviously care about quality- the chickens they use in their doro wat are those organic road-runner types that yield rich flavour without the icky grease, and the food is fresh fresh fresh. The injera is not made from teff as far as I can tell, but it is still quite tasty. The atmosphere is warm with candle-light and low furniture...wait, this is a review so I should probably try to come up with one or two problems to seem credible? To be frank, I am still too stupefied by the food to pretend I don't love the place. Wait, I can think of one thing: the Tej is not consistently good. There.

Final Score: A firm Five Garlicky Burps.

The 99 Cent Game

I went to stock up on exotic foodstuffs at Shoppers Plaza. A strange and guilty pleasure, to be sure, since whenever I am not in Paradise I will not touch canned foods. But when I am home, I am a slave to tinned goods, especially of the fish kind. Anyways, after buying some ridiculously overpriced single cream imported from the UK I wasn't given all my change. This is the third time that the charming lady at the counter offered me an apologetic smile in lieu of a 50 shilling coin. "Hatuna chenji, karibu tena..."

Yeah, right. I've never seen THAT tactic before! All those 99 cent deals in the US used to pile up nuggets of cash for the supermarkets that were smarmy enough not to stock pennies. I can understand snatching a penny out of the consumer's hand, but 50 shillings is real money. That's 150 shillings that Shoppers owes me just this month. I like them, you know, but not that much. From now on, I will be going armed with my own change to offer them whenever they feel like "running out" of 50s.

The single cream, you ask? Quiche, baby. Haven't had a home cooked one since circa 1988 and the Gods of Kitchen Experimentation are baying for a sacrifice.

And now, to the food...

Yes, I did mention something about food so here goes. I cook. I cook because I have a wonderful family that encouraged me by consuming all my efforts as a child, including green rock-hard cakes and salty, lumpy "onion soup" that could have felled a bushpig. This dangerous permissiveness early in my kitchen career guaranteed that I developed the (over)confidence to attempt anything that catches my fancy.

Said confidence is not quite matched by my skill yet, but I have come some ways from the days of The Onion Soup Incident. From time to time some of my less toxic experiments will show up on the blog. As a food blog enthusiast, I would love to offer recipes and excellent food styling, but folks, that's going to take time. Besides, I cook by feel which means that I don't measure ingredients and only use recipes for instructional or inspirational purposes. A poor baker am I.

Let me pre-empt by stating that what I do cannot be called Tanzanian Cuisine by any purist. Not that there is a standard cuisine- but that's a topic for another time. Still, I am pretty hopeless at the starchy meal cornerstones: I don't have the arm strength to make Ugali though it is on my To Learn list, as are Chapatis and Matoke. I am passionate about eating local and what goes with it so from time to time I will feature food with a Bongo soul.

But to begin, here's some stuff that's been loitering in the Cyber-shot waiting for a shout out.


First up is the burger. We never got to eat "junk food" when we were kids, so when I finally encountered a real life MacDonalds I nearly peed myself with excitement at the thought of savoring this superb world-renowned delicacy. It did not go well. Hot Box burgers are like manna from heaven in comparison. Nothing on earth, however, can beat a home-made burger, medium rare, on a toasted bun with toppings of your own choice, literature optional.


Next comes the home-made taco, which is just as satisfying. Dee, the sister who stole my height genes, cooks a mean chili from scratch. She toasts her own spice mix, and makes it just the right kind of hot: sniffle-inducing but you get to keep your tastebuds. Leftovers go down supergood with flour tortillas which are mind-bogglingly easy to make. And leftover tortillas fried+leftover chilli the day after that makes some good hard-shell tacos. Chilli: the stew that just keeps giving.


Finally, butternut squash and feta ravioli with chilli-pea puree. This one was a biggie for me, and a first. The pasta was made by hand, and rolled by hand which I don't recommend doing unless you have forearms the size of a prime bullock's thigh. Unfortunately, the dish was fraught with disaster: some of the raviolis exploded during cooking and the feta barely showed up upon tasting. The chilli-pea puree worked out good though. I tested it on Dee and she's still breathing. She had seconds too. And so goes my family's mildly suicidal encouragement of my continued kitchen experimentation...