What's for Supper?

Githeri

The menu around here is pretty basic. When you have 30 to 80 people to feed, it has to be. And when most of the staff is from the Kikuyu tribe, the food is strongly influenced by what Kikuyu’s like to eat, i.e., what they grew up with. Which means a LOT of githeri. What? You’ve never had githeri? Come volunteer at Hekima Place and that gap in your gastronomic education will be soon rectified! Githeri is basically a mixture of African corn and what appear to be kidney beans cooked until reasonably tender (not necessary to soak the dried beans beforehand, I am told). Sometimes it is dressed up a bit with boiled potatoes, sauteed diced tomatoes and chopped onions (I prefer). The corn they grow here is very different from table corn in the US. It is chewy, even when cooked for a long time with the beans, and not particularly sweet. It is more like hominy than anything else I can think of from home. I have actually developed quite a taste for githeri. Most of the ingredients come straight out of the shamba (garden).

One of the small ones polishing off the rice

And rice. A lot of rice. Rice is generally favored by the younger set around here - most seem to prefer it to githeri. It is often cooked with diced tomatoes from the shamba. Or it is served with greens or some other saucy side. Sometimes there are bits of meat cooked in.

Chiapati and green grams

A favorite of many western volunteers is green grams and chiapati. The green grams either are lentils or something very like lentils - I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. They are cooked in big pots with water much like the githeri. Chiapati is a wheat flour based flat bread cooked on a griddle. The dough is mixed up, divided into balls about 2 - 2 1/2 inches in diameter that are then rolled out into about an 8 - 10 inch circle and plopped on the heated griddle. Very tasty! Probably also very fattening, so I try to limit myself to eat just one. Nobody else seems that concerned, however. I really like the green grams, but you have to be careful to avoid the occasional lentil-sized pebbles that sneak in and can break your teeth if you are not careful.

Ugali and greens from the shamba

Yummy spaghetti!

Now another African culinary treasure most westerners barely (if at all!) tolerate is ugali. Ugali is a dish based on ground up dried African corn that is cooked with water in huge pots until very thick. It is sort of like very dense polenta, but without the flavor.  It works ok as long as it is served with something that exudes some reasonably flavorful liquid as a sop. That something is usually yummy cooked greens from the shamba. Sometimes the greens are even accompanied by bits of meat.



The week’s menu is rounded out with food all westerners would recognize and appreciate, spaghetti with meat sauce and chicken served with mashed potatoes. I won’t bother to describe those, except to say that the meat sauce is a little different, not being heavy on the tomatoes. Our African girls like it quite a lot. We also regularly have fresh fruit including mangoes, watermelon, oranges. The mangoes are WONDERFUL. If you chill them, the texture is like creamy ice cream and just as sweet!