Since the American president, arguably the powerful man in the world, has such strong roots in Kenya, the little African country has been in the news somewhat more than usual.  In many countries African food can be found on the table more frequently and with all this in mind, we decided to have a look at the food of Kenya in this, our first edition of 2010. Kenya evolved into a cultural melting pot over the centuries thanks to migrations, settlements and diaspora and is, today, still strongly rooted in its tribal tradition with many tribes continuing to maintain social

structures and traditions to this date – notwithstanding modern influences. Humans first arrived here in the Stone Age and because the country was right in the middle of a migratory path, it saw the arrival of many clans and tribes from both Africa and the Middle East from around 2000 BC. The Kikuyu, Kamba, Lao and Masai (image below) made Kenya their home and even though they all came from different parts of Africa, they all shared this region and defended it vigorously – to put it mildly. No other tribes had the courage to enter the area and it was only in the 19^th century that outsiders, in the form of the Omani Arabs, established trading posts along the Kenyan coast.

MANDAZI

Mandazi is usually eaten at breakfast (chakula cha asubuhi) with coffee (kahawa) or tea (chai). Chai is served very milky and sweet. Kenyans also eat chapattis at breakfast and often dunk it into their coffee.

Ingredients

• 450 g self raising flour
• 225 ml milk
• 45 ml caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 5 cardamom pods
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 30 ml oil – plus oil for deep frying

Method

• Crush each one of the cardamom pods slightly – shake out the seeds and discard the husks.
• Grind these cardamom seeds in a mortar and pestle and place in a large bowl with the sugar, the flour and the baking powder – stir well to combine.
• Put the egg and the oil in a small bowl and whisk together – then add the flour mixture slowly, mixing with your fingers and adding the milk to make a dough.
• Knead the dough lightly until smooth and not sticky (when you stick your finger in it must not stick to the dough), adding more flour if necessary.
• Leave in a warm place for 15 minutes and the roll out into about 1 cm thickness.
• Heat the oil in a heavy pan or a deep fryer and deep-fry the mandazis until they are golden brown – turn them frequently in the oil.

The trading posts dealt in ivory and, unfortunately, slaves. All the trading posts belonged to the Sultan of Zanzibar until the Brits and the Germans got hold of it and by 1890 the Germans handed over the extraordinarily beautiful and fertile highlands to the Brits who introduced racial segregation as they had done in every country they invaded and ruled.  As could be expected, it didn’t last and the Mau Mau rebellion heralded the beginning of the end even though it was ruthlessly crushed in 1956. At this point we recommend two books that have nothing to do with food but make such compelling reading that we couldn’t resist it and we quote some comments from one of Bernard Potter’s reviews:

• Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empireby David Anderson
  Weidenfeld, 406 pp, £20.00, January 2005, ISBN 0 297 84719 8
• Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
  Cape, 475 pp, £20.00, January 2005, ISBN 0 224 07363 X

It is the scale of the British atrocities in Kenya that is the most startling revelation of these books. We always knew about the Mau Mau atrocities, of course: assiduously retailed to the British public by the authorities in Kenya through the Colonial Office, and right-wing newspapers like the Daily Mail. (Elkins calls the Daily Mail a ‘tabloid’, which isn’t strictly true for this period, but seems to fit in other ways.) But for years the equally savage abuses by British officers and their African collaborators in the detention camps, controlled villages and courtrooms of Kenya were mostly hidden from people at home. They knew some of it – indeed, did what they could to put an end to it after the scandalous British beatings of detainees at Hola camp in 1959, which left 11 dead and 60 seriously wounded – but nothing like the whole. ……  Then, when the British eventually left Kenya, they made bonfires of most of the incriminating material about the detention camps. Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, connived in this, anxious in the interests of national unity to ‘erase’ the past, and not to encourage the ‘hooligans’ of Mau Mau. (It was a bit like South Africa’s ‘truth and reconciliation’, but without the truth.) Elkins tells us that she was taken in by Colonial Office propaganda at the beginning of her research, as she leafed through the files at the Public Record Office, and realised the extent of their mendacity only when she went out to Kenya to see and hear for herself.

SIMPLE COCONUT RELISH

Ingredients

• 50 g fresh or desiccated coconut
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 10 ml fresh lemon juice
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• 10 ml water

Method

• Grate the fresh coconut and then place it in a mixing bowl (if you are using desiccated coconut, add just enough water to moisten it).
• Cut the chilli in half and remove the seeds (if you have a sensitive palate), then chop the flesh into fine slices and chop these slices into tiny pieces – use a minimum of 1 ½ tsp but more if you like the heat.
• Add the lemon juice, the salt, the water and the chopped chilli and stir well to mix.
• Serve this relish with meat.

To get back to Kenyan cuisine, cattle herding was introduced by a clan from north Africa called the Hima around 1000 AD and by the 1600’a tribes, like the Masai and the Turkana (image of a Turkana princess above), ate only beef. The cattle provided them with meat, blood, milk and butter. The Portuguese, when they arrived in 1496, introduced some of the foods they had just discovered in Brazil and bananas, pineapples, chillies, peppers, sweet potatoes, cassava and maize soon became local staples. Soon oranges, lemons and limes provided vital vitamin C and pigs thrived and are a favourite to this day.  As time passed, the Brits imported thousands of labourers from the British controlled India and the typical spicy Indian dishes and  chapatis were found on local menus.

Today, the traditional Kenyan foods depend on who’s doing the eating – most typical dishes are filling and not very expensive and consist of corn, maize, potatoes and beans. Ugali, a maize porridge is particular favourite and eaten with meat inland, whereas, along the coast, the diet is more varied. The Masai diet is simple and they depend on cow and goat products – they eat no game and no fish at all.

IRIO

Ingredients

• 500 ml maize kernels
• 500 ml red kidney beans
• 4 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 500 ml spinach
• 1 tsp cumin, dry roasted and ground
• 1 large lemon, grated zest only
• 1 tsp cardamom seeds, ground
• 200 ml butter
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

• Boil the potatoes in plenty of salted water until they are soft, drain and set aside.
• Put the red kidney beans into a large saucepan with a little salt and boil for about 15 minutes, then add the corn and the spinach and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are soft.
• Now add the potatoes, the cumin, the cardamom, the lemon zest and cook for another 10 minutes.
• Season with salt and pepper and mash the mixture with a fork or wooden spoon, incorporate the butter and serve steaming hot.

The Kikuyu (image of a woman above) and Gikuyu are good gardeners and  corn, beans, potatoes and other vegetables form their diets – the vegetables are typically mashed to make something called irio – this is rolled into balls and then dipped into stews made from either meat or vegetables.

The Kenyans living near Lake Victoria live on fish, vegetables and rice.

On the Eastern coast, the Swahili dishes tell the of the tale of the Arab traders and their food – they brought in dried fruit, spices and rice and to this day the diet is rich with coconut and spices.

SUKUMA WIKI

The word means ‘to stretch the week’ and is a combination of chopped spinach that has been fried with onions, tomatoes and a little pepperoni  – if there’s a little meat, this is added as well. Traditionally it’s seasoned with salt and pepper – usually a piece of dough is pinched off by hand, an indentation is made with the finger if there are any sauces to scoop up. Our recipe is not quite as simple at the original Kenyan recipe.

Ingredients

• 500 g kale (or collard green, spinach or Swiss chard)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 3 tomatoes, peeled and  chopped
• 125 ml water
• 1 lemon, zest only
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

• Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onions, sauté until they are quite translucent and then add the tomatoes and sauté until the tomatoes are soft.
• Add about 100 ml water, the lemon zest and then add salt to taste before adding the greens – allow to simmer until the greens are just tender.
• Drizzle with a little fresh olive oil and serve with crunchy bread (not traditional but delicious.)

NYAMA CHOMA

Meat (nyama choma) is eaten quite differently here –  the process of grilling meat in Kenya is different from the process of barbequing meat. Basting and seasoning is not traditional and when eating nyama choma in a restaurant, the diner will select a portion from the available meat – this is then  grilled as is and brought to the table sliced into bite-sized pieces and served with mashed vegetables. Western diners are free to season as they see fit. The Kenyan climate provides a plethora of fruit and mangoes, papaya, passion fruit, pineapples, watermelons, oranges, guavas, a host of various types of bananas and coconuts, amongst others, are freely available and very cheap. Passion fruit juice is sold everywhere and known to the locals as ‘passion’.

Lunch is the main chakula of the day. Meat such as beef, goat, or mutton (sheep) is most commonly eaten. Other dishes can include githeri , a mix of beans (usually red kidney beans) and corn, and matoke , or mashed plantains (similar to a banana). Foods served at dinner are much like what is served at lunch. Knives and forks are usually used when eating European food in Kenya but when eating the traditional Kenyan way, a piece of ugali, held in the right hand, is used as a sort of utensil to scoop up food. The Kiswahili word for “right” is kulia , which means “to eat with.” The right hand is usually used to pass and accept items. Use of the left hand is considered improper. Eating customs vary throughout Kenya. Interestingly, the Samburu, warriors do not in front of women and men are always served first. As in many western homes, they children sometimes eat separately from adults.

DENGU – KENYAN MUNG BEAN STEW

Ingredients

• 225 g mung beans, soaked overnight
• 25 g ghee
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 30 ml tomato puree
• 1 fresh green chilli
• ½ green pepperoni (bell pepper)
• ½  red pepperoni (bell pepper)
• 300 ml water

Method

• Put the mung beans in a large pot, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer until the beans are very soft and the water has evaporated.
• Remove the pot from the heat and mash the beans with a fork or a potato masher until smooth, set aside.
• Heat the ghee (or butter) in a separate saucepan, add the garlic and the onion and fry until golden, then add the tomato puree and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring continuously.
• Stir the mashed beans, then add the green and red peppers and the chilli.
• Add the water, stirring well to mix all the ingredients together.
• Pour the mixture into a clean saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes and then spoon into a serving dish and serve immediately.

STREET FOOD

Street vendors are a common occurrence on Kenyan streets and they offer a variety of interesting foods like Sambusas (known as samoosas in western countries),  corn on the cob roasted wire grills over hot coals and sold cheaply for a few Kenyan shillings, mkate mayai (image above) – bread eggs that consists of wheat dough spread into a thin pancake and filled with minced meat and raw egg, then folded before serving. Sweets like ice cream, yogurt and deep fried yams that are eaten with lemon juice and chilli are on offer everywhere. In rural areas, children snack on roasted maize and sugar cane – so much healthier than greasy hamburgers and toffees.