FOOD

Uji

Breakfast porridge, uji, is popular...but to all you porridge/oatmeal fans (ME) it is NOT what you are thinking.  For one it isn't even made of oats and it's really running and you MUST eat it with sugar otherwise it tastes of nothing.
Ingredients:
Maize flour, millet, salt and my host mum crushed peanuts into it, and then you just boil it until it's at the right consistancy--runny--but you have to make sure you boil the water fully to kill any parasites.  It's edible but I limited the amount I ate because I didn't really like it.

weird potato on the left and sweet potato on the right.

Sweet Potato!!  so so good.  Different from home, purple outside and white inside but so sweet and flavourful! don't need anything to go with it and it's delicious.  It's a great breakfast food too, I actually came to really look forward to when sweet potatoes were cooked :)

 

Maandazi

 Maandazi:  Like doughnuts, fried balls of dough with a lot of sugar in the recipe...really good with tea!

Ugali

    Ugali:  Doesn't taste like anything....just a ball of firm dough it seems like that you eat with your hands, I have to cover it with something else that I am eating with dinner to eat it...not a fan but it's a traditional Tanzanian favourite!  It's made with maize flour and water and boiled to a dough like consistency and tah-dah! you have ugali.

Ella and an avocado the size of a small watermelon!

Line and an avocado!

   Avocado:  HUMONGOUS!! I'm not kidding, they are huge, the size of Line's head in the above picture.  About 10 wedges in one avocado...and Tanzanians love them.  They generally have them with lunch and dinner, it's in their juices and my host dad eats one half for himself and splits the other half with the rest of us at dinner (5 other people).  Was shocked when I first saw them, didn't know what they were!

Mama Beatrice cooking away on the charcoal grill!

 Coconut Beans {Maharagwe} w/Rice:   So so good!! One of my favourite meals that Beatrice cooked.  Beans fro the market, sorted through outside on a large round flat weaved..thing..to get all the crappy beans or ones that are deformed.  Then rinsed twice, and it's amazing how dirty they really are! Then boiled for however long it takes for them to be ready, about 30-45 minutes? Then Mama Beatrice scrapes the inside of the coconut on a traditional coconut scraper thing? to get the fruit and then she squeezes the juice out of it to put in the beans, and then adds carrots, peppers and onions and that's it! mmmm

Typical dinner time--nomnomnom

 Juice--made with one half avocado, one mango, two/three bananas and a passion fruit if we have one and then water added.  It is just like a smoothie and tastes delicious!  Didn't have it every night, so when we did it was a treat...about every three or so meals we'd have it with dinner.  Sometimes she'd add a bit of ginger to it too, that was lovely.

Roasted Maize

 Roasted Maize:  Found at any market or along the streets.  Women roast large sacks full of maize and sell them for 200 Tsh and they are a tasty snack.  HOWEVER, don't be fooled by their appearance to sweet corn on the cob because they taste nothing like corn on the cob.  Instead they just taste like popcorn.  Maize has a harder consistency than sweet corn and it is not as sweet, but like I said, it makes a good snack.  Maize flour is also a common ingredient in a lot of dishes.

 Greenish Oranges:  Oranges are always found at markets, and stacked in groups of five and sold for 500Tsh.  When I first arrived in late May, the oranges were still green but surprisingly edible and not too sour.  Over the course of the month, they started to become a bit yellower in colour and slightly sweeter! It was an exciting process to witness, but definitely makes you appreciate the super sweet super bright orange oranges back home!  And the Tanzanians eat them very oddly.  They peel the skin, but just the hard layer off of the entire orange, cut it in half and then eat the inside, though I think they mainly just suck the juice...basically they aren't eating the whole orange.  I tried to teach our host dad, Joshua, how it's so much easier cutting the orange in quarters and then peeling the entire orange piece off that way, but I guess old habits die hard.

Sukuma wiki with ugali and chicken

Collared Greens or Kale {Sukuma wiki}:  literally meaning 'to push the week'  it is another one of my favourite vegetable dishes that Mama Beatrice made many times.  All it is is boiled kale, spinach, greens, pumpkin leaves, sweet potato leaves, etc. and oil, tomatoes, salt and Beatrice liked to add onion and chopped carrots as well. Tasty...this makes the Ugali edible for me!

Ndizi na Nyama with coconut milk

Same thing without coconut milk.

Plantains with Meat {Ndizi na Nyama}: Had this dish twice, once at home with coconut milk and once at a pub without coconut milk.  Both were good, and I think I preferred the one without the milk in it because I could taste the other flavours more.  It is made with cooking bananas (plantains), potatoes, and whatever meat you have on hand, I've had it once with beef and the other time with chicken.  It is a typical East African dish :)