10. Breakfast chapati, Nairobi
I did a lot of weeknight drinking to pass the time in lonely Nairobi, and when the alarm went off at 7:30 the next morning it would almost bring me to tears. Salvation came in the form of the chapati stand near my office, conveniently located in the stall between the bicycle mechanic and the guy selling secondhand shoes. The chapati is just fried dough, but as an alcohol sponge it's unsurpassed.
9. Roadside fried chicken, Swaziland
The Swazi women were selling these packaged lunches on the side of the road, crispy, breaded fried chicken lunches, with corn meal and garden salad. The food was sitting under cellophane wrap in the midday sun, and my friends made a stink about food quality, but goddamn that chicken skin was good.
8. Fish stew lunch, Kampala
I sent out for lunch one day in Uganda and got this back, a tomato-based tilapia stew over rice. I ate it African style: washing my hands with a eucalyptus-scented washcloth then digging in with my fingers. Bony, greasy, and pungent, but delicious.
7. Goat entrails, various, Suburbs of Nairobi
Ingredients:
1 live goat
Directions:
Buy a goat from the Somali herdswoman on the side of the road. Slit its throat and drain the blood into a bucket. While the blood coagulates in the heat of the equatorial sun, gut the poor fucker and clean out the stomach and intestines. Chop those up and boil 'em for about an hour. Then pour the coagulated blood on top of it. Let that sit for a while while you grill up the organ meats: Liver, heart, pancreas and kidneys. Add salt. Serves 12.
We cooked this on Christmas, and I have it all on DV, which will probably get its own (very gory) post. My favorite part was the kidneys, which were meaty and salted with a faint uric tang. Later I got scolded for eating these, as they are reserved by tradition immemorial as a health supplement for pubescent girls, which explains why I spent Boxing Day watching the entire fourth season of The Hills.
6. Dried watermelon, Jinja, Uganda
One of my clients out here is a purveyor of dried fruit snacks, which include pineapple, banana, papaya, mango, and jackfruit. And watermelon. It takes 83 kg of fresh watermelon to make 1 kg of dried, so it's the horticultural equivalent of beef bouillon. Melts in your mouth and tastes like toffee.
5. Piri-piri chicken gizzards, Swaziland
The gizzard is a little sack in the throat of a bird that grinds down food into digestible quantities. Throw about 10 of 'em on a skewer, slather them in hot sauce, then cook them over an open charcoal grill. Yum.
4. Nyama choma, Nyeri, Kenya
Nyama choma means "roast meat", and it's the Kenyan specialty dish. The best I had was in the open-air food atrium at the seedy Lenana Hotel in Nyeri. There were four of us, and we were climbing the mountain the next day, so we ordered a enormous smorgasbord of goat, beef, and chicken, butchered and marinated to spec. Best of all were the shish kebabs with ginger.
3. Galaxy Restaurant, Maputo, Mozambique
The south asian community in East Africa goes back for centuries, so even small African towns usually have a reliable Indian restaurant. But this restaurant is a cut above the rest; in fact it's the best Indian food I've ever had. The place is run by hard-core Muslims though, so no alcohol, not even BYO. Go on a Sunday and find a seat next to the bearded gentleman in the robe and the funny hat, his wife in the full-length black burqa with the eye slits, and their 14 kids who are running around the restaurant screaming and climbing on the back of your chair. Try to ignore the steely, angry gaze he's giving you and your female dining companion in the spaghetti-strapped tanktop, and dig in. A portion of the proceeds from your meal will be donated to an Islamic charity of your choosing (read: Al-Qaeda), but it's a small price to pay for the halal chicken with cashew curry and okra stir-fry.
2. King prawns, Maputo fish market, Mozambique
It's a shrimp, but it's the size of a large banana. You'll have to shell out like $25 to get these at the ex-pat oriented hotel, so cut out the middle man and go directly to the fish stall yourself. Negotiate a price for yourself: I got two for $7, and then everyone laughed at me for being such a sucker. Then hire one of the African mamas crowding around you to cook it. Grilled lightly with butter and lemon. So good they should be called EMPEROR prawns.
1. Actually, let's leave this one out for now. It's gonna get its own post.
Coming next, ten worst African foodstuffs.
#1 could be "Swahili pizza".
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