At the Table: Food and Family around the World - Ken Albala (2016)

Uganda

Diana Caley

“YOU ARE MOST WELCOME” FOR LUNCH IN KAMPALA

“Tugende,” Agnes calls, “come and we will show you how to press the water from the matooke now because it is halfway cooked.” She invites Diana into a dimly lit hallway where Rose, her mother, is bent at the waist peering into a massive aluminum pot. “You are most welcome, mzungu,” Rose sings, drawing my attention to a steaming bundle of green bananas. The starchy staple is a fixture of Ugandan and other tropical East African cuisines. Rose, the matriarch of the Mukaandi family, explains the importance of hand-smashing the individual banana “fingers” halfway through the steaming process in order to get the right consistency. Like many home cooks here, Rose uses the traditional method of steaming matooke in banana leaves even though plastic bags are a cheap, convenient alternative. After peeling back the top layer of leaves, Rose plunges her bare hands into the steaming pot and carefully macerates the bananas into a starchy mass. “Thick skin!” she laughs, holding up her hands.

Albala

The kitchen and living room fall silent as the Mukaandi family finishes eating lunch, the main meal of the day in Uganda. (Courtesy of Diana Caley)

It is almost noon, and although the matooke pot has been perfuming the house with fragrant steam for over half an hour, Rose and her daughters have been preparing for lunch since early morning. Like many urban dwellers in Uganda, the Mukaandis shop for food each day at the local open-air market. Josephine, the family’s second-oldest daughter, purchased everything for today’s meal: massive purple-fleshed yams, white cassava with a thick brown skin, a small sack of polished white rice, a giant stalk of green bananas, chunks of beef on the bone, a whole dried fish, a small baggie of raw peanut paste, a handful of local greens (dodo); and a basket of tomatoes, onions, green bell peppers, and carrots.

Though the Mukaandis generally consider themselves to be Kampala natives now, Peter, the head of the household, fondly remembers growing up in a small village in western Uganda. “There was always something to do!” he recalls, pointing out rows of tall cassava plants and banana trees in the background of a treasured family photograph. The capital of Uganda and the country’s largest metropolitan area, Kampala is rapidly urbanizing as more and more people abandon labor-intensive farming in search of work in the city. Making ends meet in Kampala isn’t easy, however, and 6 out of 10 families here live in slums that lack basic necessities such as running water, electricity, and even toilets.

Like their parents, Agnes and her six brothers and sisters are busy with jobs and children of their own, so family meals always involve a rotating cast of characters. With the exception of holiday vacations, the young children eat midday meals at school, and the older Mukaandi sons and daughters typically eat with their own families or at work. Agnes discloses that she comes by only once or twice a month now that she is married, so she is excited for the opportunity to catch up on family gossip with her mom and sister in the kitchen. When Diana had first arrived earlier in the day, the three were laughing and trading stories in rapid-fire English and Luganda, so Diana instantly felt like an interloper intruding on intimate family time. When she admitted this to Agnes she kindly laughed, “Sister, you are most welcome.” Her heartfelt response perfectly epitomizes the Ugandan spirit: everyone, even a relative stranger, is welcome not only at the proverbial table but also into the unadorned areas of the home where everyday tasks such as meal preparation take place.

In larger multiroom homes such as the Mukaandis’, ingredients are stored and prepared in a dedicated kitchen, and the actual cooking takes place either outside or in a passageway near the door. Most families here do not have a kitchen, however, so countless streets and alleyways are lined with colorfully dressed women bent at the waist over small charcoal stoves. The Mukaandis, who are relatively well off by local standards, have a kitchen area that is separated from the living room by a thin lace curtain, so the women gather there to chat as ingredients are prepared. Josephine and Agnes adeptly peel tiny onions, tomatoes, and carrots using small kitchen knives, placing the prepared vegetables into large plastic bowls on the floor as they work. There are no chopping blocks, cutting boards, or large chef knives in sight, since everything is carefully and painstakingly prepared in their hands. The women rinse up with water from large yellow jerry cans, since there is no running water in the house.

Curls of steam rise from a quartet of massive aluminum pots tucked into a small closet like corridor leading to the back door. To crank up the heat on the traditional charcoal stoves, Rose fans glowing wood briquettes with a piece of cardboard long since liberated from the top of a box. Once-turquoise walls are black with soot and blemished with smudges of grease and light gray ash. Rose identifies the contents of each pot: unseasoned white rice, still boiling; a leaf-wrapped bundle of matooke; thick raw peanut paste sauce dotted with chunks of dried fish; and bitter dodo greens. Lifting back the lid from a large pot of boiling beef stock, Rose carefully drops in two handfuls of finely chopped vegetables. In order to make the beef “sauce” properly, she explains, you must first boil the meat until it is firm and then add the vegetables. In Uganda, the term “sauce” refers to a wide range of dishes from thick legume-based gravies to thin stock-based soups that are served alongside starchy staples such as matooke, maize, cassava, yams, potatoes, rice, millet, and sorghum.

As the beef sauce finishes cooking, Josephine unrolls two brightly colored straw mats on the floor of the kitchen, along with a massive grain-storage bag made from woven plastic. Rose sits on the bag, which she has reappropriated as a clever food- and water-resistant alternative to the traditional straw mats. She wipes clean a stack of plastic and ceramic plates and places them haphazardly on the floor around her. A handful of small glass drinking cups materialize from a back room, and Agnes fills each one from a colossal aluminum kettle. “Already boiled,” she offers, immediately registering my inadvertent look of concern about the safety of municipal tap water. Since none of the cooking vessels are adorned with handles, Josephine uses a thin towel to retrieve the massive pot of matooke and place it directly on the concrete floor next to her mother. Next comes the pot of rice, then the fish in peanut sauce, then the dodo greens, then the beef sauce, and then a tray of steamed cassava and yams that had been prepared earlier.

Starchy, bland, and dull yellow in color, the center of today’s meal is matooke. Ugandans throughout the central and western regions generally prefer matooke, but food preferences vary by region (and climate zone), so Ugandans from other areas favor other staples. In the Mukaandi home, a variety of starches comprise the bulk of the midday meal: matooke is served alongside purple and white wedges of yam, fibrous wedges of cassava, and white rice. All four are unseasoned and relatively dry, so Rose’s sauces add much-needed flavor and moisture to the meal. The thicker of the two sauces, similar in color and texture to soupy refried beans, is made from raw peanut paste mixed with water and pieces of dried fish. The beef sauce is made from industrially produced packets of sodium-saturated Real Beef Flavor and sinewy chunks of meat on the bone. Long-cooked dodo greens, similar in bitterness and texture to dandelion, serve as a condiment to cut the richness of the sauces.

As lunchtime arrives, Peter pulls aside the lace curtain and guides his wheelchair into the kitchen, greeting his wife with a broad smile. Flipping through a local newspaper, he selects several pages and hands these to his daughter, who in turn places them on the ground in front of each family member. Folded in half, the sheets are transformed into a set of place mats that perfectly epitomize Ugandan pragmatism and ingenuity. Similarly, there is little formality or ceremony to signal the start of the meal. Rose begins by preparing a Tupperware container of food for her middle son, who is at work. (She later brings the meal to him on her way out of the house.) Josephine uses a pliant plastic soup bowl as a serving utensil to carve up and maneuver portions of matooke onto each large plate. Adults receive a piece of matooke about the size and shape of a pair of hands pressed loosely together in prayer. Rose adds a fist-sized spoonful of rice and wedges of yam and cassava to each plate. Joseph, the only young child present, receives a full portion of rice and yam but no matooke or cassava. (Children, they explain, cannot eat such firm, dry foods.) Rose portions out generous servings of sauce into small soup bowls and places these in front of each person. Presumably in an effort to reduce postmeal cleanup, she serves the sauces directly onto the plates of her family members. In keeping with local custom and hospitality, Diana is presented with her meal first, followed by Peter and then the children.

Rose finishes preparing her plate last, and by then the other family members have commenced eating. Like the use of newspaper place mats, dining etiquette in Uganda is guided by practicality: you eat when your plate arrives so that your food is hot, and there are few rules when it comes to mealtime manners. The family talks freely to each other over the sound of a tiny television that fills the empty living room with familiar baselines and drumbeats characteristic of East African popular music. Peter takes a short phone call at the beginning of the meal. There is neither pomp nor circumstance when dining at home in Kampala, so individuals can come and go during meals, sometimes lingering to catch up on family news and other times dashing back to busy lives.

Efficiency and adaptability also seem to characterize feeding practices for the young. Babies are fed breast milk or formula, and once they are old enough to eat solid food, young children receive primarily the same foods as adult family members. Children tend to eat sweeter and softer foods such as fried breads, buns, cakes, yams, orange-flesh sweet potatoes, and rice, while firm and dry staples such as cassava, matooke, and white-flesh sweet potatoes are reserved for adults. Specially prepared or industrially processed baby foods are rarities even among wealthier Ugandan households, which embrace Western tastes and foods.

In addition to being highly practical and utilitarian, many food-related practices in Uganda are also egalitarian, as is the case with certain aspects of Ugandan society. Both young boys and girls are expected to perform well in school and to help with household tasks such as fetching water and cleaning up after meals. Typically all family members—regardless of gender, employment status, or household position—receive approximately equal portions of food. When resources are scarce, everyone eats less (or else parents and grandparents reduce their portions so youngsters have enough). Though many families will present nonfamily guests with utensils, when dining at home most Ugandans—from babies to grandparents—eat with their hands. (Agnes once justified her preference for eating with her fingers by holding up a sauce-laden chunk of cassava and stating simply, “It’s more satisfying when you eat like this.”) It is also the task of the youngest teenage or preteen household member, regardless of gender, to present a small basin and carafe of water to each family member and guest in order to wash up prior to a mealtime. Food sharing and borrowing are also widely accepted in Uganda particularly in urban slums, where people recognize that hard times can befall anyone at any time. Perhaps because poverty is so entrenched and so pervasive, Ugandans tend to be exceptionally empathetic and hospitable, especially when it comes to sharing food.

Eating with Hands

In many places around the world, hands are the preferred way to get food from plate to mouth, as it was in Europe before the 16th century. There is definitely a sensual appeal of directly bringing food to the mouth without the interference of cold metal utensils. In most settings one must only use the right hand, since the left is reserved for matters of personal hygiene. Thereafter customs differ widely. In some places such as India, only the fingertips are to scoop up food, or a piece of flat bread is used for this purpose. In other places a big handful is perfectly acceptable or perhaps, as in Africa, a big ball of fufu made from grain to scoop up the food with the hand. In many places people eat off of a communal plate or out of one big bowl as well, which in many respects seems closer and more sociable than everyone getting a separate private plate. Although eating with hands seems to be increasingly common in the West where hamburgers, pizza, and portable food proliferate, there are some countries where it is strictly off limits, as in Chile.

Other aspects of Ugandan food practices and norms are distinctly hierarchical and gender biased. Earlier in the day, Rose had laughed when Diana inquired as to whether any men she knew could properly prepare matooke. The idea that an adult male, aside from street food vendors and restaurant cooks, could (or, more accurately, would) cook any kind of proper meal seemed preposterous. Meal budgeting, planning, shopping, and preparation all fall distinctly within the sphere of female responsibility. Young men in Kampala who are unmarried and living on their own tend to patronize street vendors and cheap restaurants for most or all of their meals. Unmarried women, on the other hand, typically remain at home and contribute to meal preparation and other domestic tasks until they wed or attend school out of town. Uganda’s adherence to traditional gender roles seems to be static, since many men and women view their respective positions with apathy and perhaps even complacency. Men come out ahead in the trade-off of responsibility and power: while they may feel a societal pressure to be providers, they also enjoy decision-making power within the home. Most women expect to be taken care of by men in their lives but are also obligated to perform myriad domestic and maternal responsibilities without complaint. While children of both sexes are required to perform certain domestic tasks, this equitable distribution of labor diminishes with adolescence. Today there are huge gender disparities in school enrollment, for example, particularly in rural areas where girls are forced to drop out in order to share the incredible burdens of domestic labor with their mothers and sisters.

As lunch in the Mukaandi house comes to an end, the room falls silent as everyone scrapes up last smudges of sauce from their plates. Josephine gathers up the constellation of dishes from the floor and carefully separates uneaten chunks of cassava, yam, and matooke from fish bones and smashed bits of food. The scraps will become chicken feed, and intact leftovers will be kept until supper. Diana asks the two daughters if they ever get tired of eating the same thing for lunch and dinner or of eating the same foods over and over. “Nope!” they chime in unison. One of the most remarkable aspects of food and eating culture here is a general aversion to trying varied, new, or exotic foods. Even in relatively cosmopolitan cities such as Kampala, Ugandans tend to stick to what is referred to as “local food,” or the traditional diet of grains, tubers, and bananas garnished with vegetable-, legume-, or meat-based sauces. Street foods and restaurant foods—from grilled meats and grasshoppers to samosas and chapatti—are also considered local and therefore safe to eat (despite the decidedly Indian origin of the latter two examples).

Albala

Encircled by myriad pots and dishes, the lady of the house portions out servings of dried fish in peanut sauce. (Courtesy of Diana Caley)

Today Kampala boasts dozens of “international” restaurants as well as those with slapdash combinations of various global cuisines. (Kampala’s most popular pizza chain also serves a smattering of Thai and Indian dishes.) Kampala residents also welcomed the opening of the country’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken in December 2013. One might interpret the growing number and popularity of such restaurants as signs that food tastes and preferences are quickly changing here. In reality, most “international” and Western food establishments cater almost exclusively to small but growing subpopulations of expatriates, immigrants, elite locals, and young university students (who are generally more adventurous eaters). And though many home cooks are slowly adopting various time- and labor-saving products and techniques, overt signs of systematic cultural homogenization remain to be seen across the Ugandan food landscape. This country’s strong ties to authentic “local” food will likely continue to stem the tide of globalization, at least for a little while.

Steamed Matooke (Green Bananas) with Dried Fish in Peanut Sauce and Bitter Greens

The small green bananas used to make authentic matooke are not widely available outside of East Africa, so green plantains are a suitable alternative. Banana leaves are used to regulate the moisture of the dish and to impart a distinct flavor, but if these are unavailable a metal or bamboo steamer can be used instead. If using peanut butter instead of raw peanut paste, make sure it does not contain sugar or salt.

Serves 4 to 6

4-5 whole banana leaves (if available)

6-8 green plantains, peeled and quartered

1 medium-sized dried or smoked and dried fish, broken into pieces

2 cups of raw peanut paste or unsalted peanut butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 cups chopped dandelion greens (or other dark leafy greens)

Salt to taste

1.Remove the stalk and woody rib of each banana leaf and place the stalks and ribs in the bottom of a large pot along with 3 to 4 cups of water. Place 2 banana leaves in the pot crosswise and arrange the plantain pieces on top of the leaves. Place 2 banana leaves in a crisscross pattern on top of the plantains, tucking the edges of each leaf down against the edge of the pot. Heat over medium-high heat until the plantains begin to steam. Lower the heat to low and cook until banana leaves have turned completely brown, about 30-45 minutes. Check periodically to ensure that a small amount of water remains in the bottom of the pot, adding more if necessary.

2.In the meantime, prepare the fish and peanut sauce. In a small saucepan, cover the fish pieces in water and simmer on low until the fish is soft, about 30 minutes. In a separate saucepan, whisk the peanut paste or peanut butter with 1 cup of warm water. Once the fish is soft, drain and then add to the peanut sauce. Season to taste and set aside.

3.Turn off the heat under the plantains. Carefully pull aside the top layer of banana leaves. Using a potato masher, carefully mash the plantains. Replace the top layer of banana leaves, using a fresh leaf if necessary. Add about 1 cup of water to the bottom of the pan. Steam for an additional 30 minutes on medium-low heat until the plantains are soft (about the consistency of dry mashed potatoes).

4.In the meantime, heat a skillet on medium heat. Add the vegetable oil and chopped greens. Cook over medium-low heat until soft, about 10 minutes, and add water if necessary. Season to taste.

5.Serve the peanut-fish sauce and greens over the mashed plantains.