Top Five Food Finds of East Africa

December 17, 2015

By: Ran Fan

Traveling is a feast for the mind, eyes, soul, and most of all, stomach. This is a post about what has kept my stomach happy in the last 3 months in East Africa; I’d like to share five East African foods that I’ve enjoyed.

1. Let’s start with the ubiquitous staple dish, the star player in almost every local restaurant – a heaping plate of various starches/carbs with a side of one or two pieces of meat if you want to treat yourself. This is a dish intended for the working man, strangely devoid of the abundant vegetables found in markets, its' primary focus is on calories.

The starches on the plate are simply referred to as “food”, asking a restaurant "what food do you have?" is asking them what's in stock for the day, after which you can pick and choose which ones you want. Whether you pick one item or all of them, they are always guaranteed to fill the entire plate!

If you ask for food with meat, it will usually come with a broth / sauce, which will help add flavor to the starches.

This is one of my favorite meals in Uganda. It is always wise to ask the restaurant what meat is good today. In this case, they advised me to have the fish, tilapia, just caught. As an extra step to having fish, I had to decide if I wanted "head or tail", front half or second half of the fish! My understanding of tilapia was limited to the frozen, white, tasteless fillets found in the freezer section. This fish was from a different realm. Meaty, tender, flavorful, especially in the tomato based sauce. The fresh passion fruit was pretty delicious too.

The price range of such a typical meal varies from $1.5 - $4, depending on location and if it's a "buffet" style service. Juice and water are typically about 75 cents. Quite a deal!

2. Some of you may "bug out" at this next item due to the amount of crunchy protein involved. Twice a year in Uganda and Rwanda, giant flying insects invade the city. In November, it is grasshopper, nsenene, and in Rwanda, white flying ants. Thus, the only logical thing to do is of course, to capture them and eat them. And given that it only occurs biannually, these are considered delicacies.

Grasshoppers are sold toasted or alive for you to take home to cook. There is a belief that smoking them will ward off ghosts.