food!

the vegetarians diet

at long last, an blog about the food here in Dar es salaam. So many of you have being asking what the food was like in both places. Grabouw, being in south Africa which could be described as Britain in Africa to some extent, we ate the same as we would in England.

But now in Dar im eating whatever the locals eat. I normaly have to skip breakfast in order to get to the school on time-7, i wasn’t going to be late for school buy eating “cardboard” bread. So for snack at the school (the kids don’t have breakfast either despite being up since 5) i normal have the equivalent of an English hash brown,  this is an triangular shaped fryied outer coating thingy which as potateo in the middle- i canne describe it any better, nor remember the real name- sorry!

Then lunch- this is Buguruni’s infamous ugali and beans. Ugali is a tradditonal African staple deirt and is best described as mash potateo in flour, it is tasteless i mean really tasteless but after a while a have got used for it. (for those of you that think its nice it’s because you’ve had “posh” ugali in a restaurant of special occasion!) the beans are godsend as they add taste to the ugali J, at the school we always eat with our hands and their is a special method for eating the ugali, another time perhaps.

Supper- its always rice, whether i eat it at the school (rice and beans, rather nice) or at the convent. The convent do actually cook some rather nice nosh. But the bottom line for everymeal is rice and spinach, normally combined with some other tings such as cabbage- my favourite or this pea soup thingy which is rather nice. Then we always have some fruit for pudding, the pineapple and the mangos are the freshest on the planet J

On occasions the nuns have invited to little nun gatherings/partys where they cook stuff out of the ordinary! Omelette with chips- actually surprisingly nice. Yes they do drink acholol, but its normaly some horrible Tanzanian made red wine mixed with coke, i’ve yet to decide whether coke or Pepsi taste better!?

Now the meat- its horrible, Tanzanian livestock don’t get fed very well (compared to Jame’s  cows on Robert berry farm) so its just disgusting. Whether its beef, chicken or even something unregonisable (maybe roadkill dog!) its just so skinny, the fat always out ratios the meat and thats if there is any meat! So i actually dread eating meat here L makes me gag.

So its normal for me to go for days or weeks without eating meat- argh! But some weekends i escape bugurni to Nevil and Alisons house (the most wonderful people in the world) and eat like royals. Nevil is such an amazing chef, why he didn’t make a career out of it i dunno. But my favourite dish is just to consume a packet of sausages (10 by myself yes).

That’s the food in a bombshell! Hopefully il add another blog before of to summit kilimanjuro.

For those of you already collecting football gear- a huge thank you J

Simonx