One thing I love about this city is the food. Not only do I love the food that I can get from pretty much anywhere and everywhere on the street, but it's cheap. Not just cheap, but it's the kind of cheap that makes you wonder why you would ever leave. Let me put it in perspective:
I can go to SAUT and get a big ol' plate of rice (wali) or pelau (pretty much like what we'd have at home, minus the chicken and pig tail) with beans, spinach, nyama ng'ombe (meat of cow) for a whopping total of 1000 TSH. Throw in a Mountain Dew for 500 TSH to wash it down, and I've got a meal for a loonie and a dime. Beat that KFC Toonie Tuesdays (which ironically cost three dollars plus and change now for a piece of chicken and a mouthful of bad tasting fries).
You can pretty much go anywhere and get a lunch and/or dinner for 3000 TSH or less for African food. African food and the Mwanza diet staples being wali, pelau, ugali (which is a whiter and thicker version of cou-cou), with some samaki (fish), nyama ng'ombe, or kuku (chicken). It took me a few weeks to discover these places to eat, and I'll admit I was hungry for that time, but spend a little bit of money and your belly will be full. A full belly means a happy Christopher.
One thing I don't like is the lack of pork. I know Mwanza and Tanzania have large Muslim populations that don't eat pork, and that even good ol' Christian folk have been taught that the pig is a "dirty" animal. But man, I love me some pig. Ham, pork shoulder, bacon, pig tail, I love it.
On a serious note on Black Identity across the Atlantic, I think that's the biggest difference I've noticed between Blacks in the Americas (especially the US, Canada, and the Caribbean) and Black Tanzanians with respect to culinary habits. Black Americans love their pork and cherish it like it was God's gift (and their slave master's) to them. I fit right in that category and would love me some wali na pig tail (rice and pig tail).
No, I'm not going to get into a lecture about how slavery and slave diets forced Black Americans to eat pork and the parts of the pig that White folks didn't want.
Moral of the story:
Save a chicken and eat a pig. Drink a Mountain Dew while you're at it. Diet of champions and endorsed by Christopher Stuart Taylor (still waiting for that money, Pepsi!)
I can go to SAUT and get a big ol' plate of rice (wali) or pelau (pretty much like what we'd have at home, minus the chicken and pig tail) with beans, spinach, nyama ng'ombe (meat of cow) for a whopping total of 1000 TSH. Throw in a Mountain Dew for 500 TSH to wash it down, and I've got a meal for a loonie and a dime. Beat that KFC Toonie Tuesdays (which ironically cost three dollars plus and change now for a piece of chicken and a mouthful of bad tasting fries).
You can pretty much go anywhere and get a lunch and/or dinner for 3000 TSH or less for African food. African food and the Mwanza diet staples being wali, pelau, ugali (which is a whiter and thicker version of cou-cou), with some samaki (fish), nyama ng'ombe, or kuku (chicken). It took me a few weeks to discover these places to eat, and I'll admit I was hungry for that time, but spend a little bit of money and your belly will be full. A full belly means a happy Christopher.
One thing I don't like is the lack of pork. I know Mwanza and Tanzania have large Muslim populations that don't eat pork, and that even good ol' Christian folk have been taught that the pig is a "dirty" animal. But man, I love me some pig. Ham, pork shoulder, bacon, pig tail, I love it.
On a serious note on Black Identity across the Atlantic, I think that's the biggest difference I've noticed between Blacks in the Americas (especially the US, Canada, and the Caribbean) and Black Tanzanians with respect to culinary habits. Black Americans love their pork and cherish it like it was God's gift (and their slave master's) to them. I fit right in that category and would love me some wali na pig tail (rice and pig tail).
No, I'm not going to get into a lecture about how slavery and slave diets forced Black Americans to eat pork and the parts of the pig that White folks didn't want.
Moral of the story:
Save a chicken and eat a pig. Drink a Mountain Dew while you're at it. Diet of champions and endorsed by Christopher Stuart Taylor (still waiting for that money, Pepsi!)
lol - a full belly means a happy Christopher. so true.
ReplyDeletelol @ Cara.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm still not over the fact that a full plate of food only costs twice as much as Mountain Dew.
Some things don't add up to make a lot of sense out here, but it works.
ReplyDelete