African Markets & Food

Yesterday we got to Skype with one of our favorite families in Arkansas and the kids had a lot of questions about the food.  We are truly blessed with delicious food here in Nairobi!

We have many produce markets that have a huge selection of fresh vegetables and fruits, and the supermarket has a large variety of items.  Groceries look and taste a bit different but we are able to make many of our favorite foods like spaghetti, lasagna, sloppy joes and cinnamon rolls.  There is even a butchery that orders many American products (they have Pilsbury slice and bake cookies) but they are really expensive so we have not purchased anything except 1 can of Dr. Pepper and 1 can of A&W Root Beer...about $1.50 to $2.00 a can.

There are some traditional foods that we have seen in the markets.  This is a picture of a meal that we ate at a restaurant in Lusaka.  The bowl of white stuff in the background is called nshima (or ugali in Kenya).  Nshima is made from cornmeal and is basically a gut filler, it is served with most every meal.  You get a huge portion that we never could finish, but it certainly fills you up!  The chicken is not as common but most meals include a type of relish, here it is some type of greens.  Cabbage cooked with onions and tomatoes was served as the relish with many of the meals we ate in Zambia.

Now there are some items that we would not consider being very common but we saw all over the markets, so we assume they are common foods in Zambia...

Yes, these are catepillars!  Thankfully, I was not blessed with the experience of trying these beauties.

Kapenta (basically dried minnows) - I was told they are delicious cooked with tomatoes and onions.

These ladies were proudly selling lots of fish!  Petauke was not near the coast but the Zambezi River is fairly close.

Now if you are interested in chickens, there are 2 choices:  the village chicken or what someone called genetically modified (that sounds awful!)

Village chickens (basically free range chickens) have a gamey taste.

These were the other chickens (this would be closer to what we eat in the USA).  Not sure why this one is missing all of its feathers on the breast.

One of my favorite treats in the markets were the fritas (also known as mandazis in Kenya).  This woman had a huge vat of batter and sat over the boiling pot of oil all day to sell her fritas.

So as you can see, we are not suffering when it comes to food...we are well fed!  Our favorite meal at home is beans, rice, pico de gallo and guacamole (the avocados are huge and delicious!)

This is an avocado on the tree at the office compound.

We even found a new place in the mall called Planet Yogurt (similar to YumYos in Arkansas) and one of our favorite restaurants is Java House which serves very western food and makes a delicious (and cheap) cafe latte.