Food blog #1: Breakfast (chamshakinywa)

Several people for home have asked us about the eats here, and there’s a lot to say, so I think we’ll address this in a trilogy of blogs, a la Lord of the Rings. A logical place to start is breakfast. E and I usually get up at around 6, as the people who work at the hotel behind us start chatting outside of our window at that time. Also, roosters actually begin to crow. We either go for a swim or a run, and then come back for breakfast, which we usually take (Kenyans always say “I took the eggs” or “I took the beer” instead of saying “ate” or “drank”) around 7:45. Thanks to Lucy, our breakfast is lovingly prepared for us. It is heavily biased towards fruit, which is abundant and cheap in these parts.

One of the more prominent fruits on the menu is oranges (machungwa). These are grown in the area, and on the way to the hospital, we always pass the farmers coming to Ukunda with the fresh picked oranges loaded into huge baskets on the back of their bikes. They’re usually a little more green than what we’re used to in the States, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s due to a gene that we’ve engineered into our fruit. Or perhaps they just pick them early. Regardless, they’re tasty, but not unlike oranges back home, except more seeds, which I’ve taken to eating, as I don’t have the patience to pick them out.

We then will take some papaya (pawpaw but pronounced “popo”). These are generally very tasty, though when they get overripe, they’re pretty foul. For the first week or so, mzee would have E’s piece, as she didn’t like it, but now it’s the first fruit that she grabs. Now if only I can make that happen with her and hot peppers…

We now move on to the passion fruit, known simply as “passion”. This is my favorite. We discovered the wonders of passion fruit while on our honeymoon in Thailand, and I was pleased to discover that they have them here as well. For those only acquainted to passion fruit shampoo, the flesh of the fruit actually looks revolting, much like orange grubs. However, it is juicy and so, so tasty although E doesn’t care for it so I eat her share every morning. Also, we’ve been told that there are three varieties; we’ve had two, but we’ll keep you posted.

On to the bananas (ndizi). They are everywhere here, and while they’re usually a little more ripe than I like, they are just like at home. I actually used my new Swahili bargaining skills today at lunch to buy some bananas in Msambweni, and was proud that I got two (mbili) for 10 shillings (shilingi kumi). Then I realized that that’s basically what I’d pay at Wal-Mart. So cheap bananas are.

Watermelon is an occasional visitor at the breakfast table, though I have nothing interesting to say about them. Next, we have tangerines. Don’t have much to say about them, except that they’re delicious. We don’t have all of these fruits ever breakfast, but probably four of them is average. Every other day on the way home from the hospital, we’ll stop in Ukunda and visit Mungai’s “pawpaw guy” or “ndizi lady”.

Many years ago, Mungai realized that Americans really loved peanut butter, so he keeps the house stocked with good ol’ fashioned chunky Skippy. I tell you, it is delightful to have a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the morning; it feels like home. We found E some nice strawberry jam at the grocery, with one odd feature: It’s in a tin can. We tear through the peanut butter, and I’m glad that we have it, as I don’t have the problem of getting hungry at 9 am.

Finally, we’ll often have a Kenyan-style omlette. Each is probably an egg and a half, and it has some peppers and onions mixed it. They are very flat and unrolled, but tasty nonetheless. Cheese is missing, but we can do without for a few months. A curious note about eggs: Mungai took the egg crates into market the week we arrived and probably received 5 dozen eggs. He came home and put them on the counter in the kitchen, and we noticed that they were there in the morning as well. And they were there a week later, and two weeks later. Refrigeration of eggs is apparently unheard of here. If you want eggs from the big Walmart-esque store here, just look on the shelf next to the canned goods. We haven’t been sick from eggs yet, so I guess we can’t knock it, but it just seems perverse. Also, the egg yokes here are milky-colored, not the bright orange we were expecting of the free-range (and I do mean free) chickens. We know that the orange depends on the beta-carotene in the chicken’s diet, and maybe they’re deficient here for some reason? If someone has an answer, please let us know.

Finally, no Kenyan meal is complete without chai. Add some sugar and tea masala (cinimmon, cloves, nutmeg, etc) and it’s quite nice. However, I have a problem with very hot tea in a hot climate. This is how breakfast goes: Eat fruit, eat bread and peanut butter, sip some tea, eat omlette, drink tea more quickly because food is gone, begin to sweat, listen to Mungai and E converse, sweat through my shirt, decide that it’s time to go to the bedroom and remove my shirt and splash water on my face, recollect myself, clothe myself, head back out to the table and finish my last sips of tea as if nothing happened. I’ll repeat, it’s basically winter here.