“What is that?” “I don’t know... eat it!”

That has been our motto so far in Kenya in terms of food. A lot of people have asked me what my food situation has been like here, and whether or not I’ve needed the Clif Bars and peanut butter crackers I brought from home.
I am currently munching on a banana nut bread Clif Bar, but only because I’m a little hungry after a day at school. The food I’ve eaten so far has been pretty good! I’m not RAVING about it, but it’s definitely completely fine, and is absolutely nothing to complain about.

After grueling days on the mountain, we came back to gourmet food- tilapia and vegetables, chicken curry, chapatti, and other Indian-inspired foods were plentiful. It seems that there is a soup served with every meal, usually some type of vegetable. Sometimes the soup is vague- just gray. It’s usually a potato or yam-based soup, and it’s nice on rainy nights like last night! Yams here are not what you’re probably imagining: they’re bland, white vegetables that aren’t really very flavorful, just filling. Something we’ve also noticed is how common it is to have every food group represented at each meal. Every meal I’ve eaten has been well-balanced and healthy, the only dessert I’ve had since I left is fruit! I did, however, buy a Bueno bar in Switzerland that Patricia and I are saving for when we’re REALLY homesick.
In Kisumu, we really got introduced to more traditional Kenyan foods, specifically ugali and sukuma. Ugali, from what we can figure out, is maize (everyone here says maize, not corn, they think the word corn is hilarious) flour that is cooked and cooked until it’s one large lump that looks like bread dough. It’s chewy, and though it doesn’t really have a taste, it does have a distinct flavor. It’s not absorbent like mashed potatoes, and is chewier than that- think really overcooked oatmeal with less taste. While I’ve probably just made that sound quite unappealing, it’s really not that bad, and is generally served with every meal. It’s a big staple food here, along with sukuma.

Sukuma is a mixture that is primarily kale that is sautéed (I think) with onions and maybe a little garlic and olive oil, sometimes peppers are added if they’re around. Sounds plain? Well, it is, but it’s become one of my favorite Kenyan foods. I love sautéed spinach with lots of garlic and olive oil at home, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that I like it so much. Instead of leaves of kale, it’s shredded into thin pieces, so sometimes you have to twirl it around your fork like spaghetti.
Usually the other dishes at our meals contain some type of meat. The past few days at the compound we’ve been served sausage, beef, chicken, and fish, and as is common in a lot of places, the whole fish is served. What’s different is that it’s cut in half- so there are heads and tails in a sauce in a bowl. This, however, I did not know when I first saw the bowl, I just assumed they were whole fish. I didn’t exactly know how to tackle my fish when I first saw it- so being the good friend and travel companion that I am, I passed the bowl of fish to Patricia to see how she’d handle it. Dominican meals here are family style, with lots of passing around a big oval table. By the time the bowl got back around to me, there were two pieces left- and of course, because what goes around comes around, I looked into the bowl, and two fish heads looked back. While I have tried every other food in Kenya, I was really quite uncomfortable eating something that is looking at me… so I passed on fish that night and filled up on ugali and sukuma.

Fruit that we’ve fallen in love with include passion fruit and papaya, and the oranges here are great too! Did I mention that one morning I had an avocado from the tree outside my door for breakfast? Fr. Bert halved it for Patricia and me and poured some olive oil and balsamic over it- not a traditional breakfast at all, but really good. Breakfast here is definitely different- the friars get nervous that we’re not eating enough if we only have a piece of fruit and toast for breakfast, something we’d consider acceptable in the US. A lot of times the novices reheat the dinner leftovers- chicken, fish, or whatever else is around- for breakfast. Porridge is also pretty common, which we tried, but it tastes really just like it looks: gray.
We decided that we’d make French toast for everyone on Sunday for breakfast, so today we did a practice run- thank goodness. Now, I’d consider French toast an easy dish, wouldn’t you? Something Patricia and I could definitely do. We cracked a few eggs, whisked them with some cinnamon and sugar in a bowl, and put a piece of bread on the pan. Everything’s going well… until we get to the stove. It’s an old gas stove that you have to light using a match, something I’ve never done before. I lit the flame successfully only after enlisting the help of Fr. Kevin, put the pan on the burner, and set to work. When I tried to turn the heat down, the flame simply went out. So I lit it again (all by myself!), and put the bread in the pan. We hear the sound of cooking French toast- hooray! We go to flip the piece of bread… oops. We forgot butter! No big, it only stuck to the pan in one spot. Add butter, flip bread. Carefully… lower… flame… it goes out. Another match lit, another flame on. By this time the pan is so hot that the French toast cooks on the other side in seconds- both sides are burned. Okay, well, we learned… on to the second piece. A similar chain of events and several matches later, we each have two questionable pieces of French toast. Honestly it was pretty good, and we got the hang of it by the end! Hopefully Sunday will be a lot smoother.

As for water, the Friars treat a lot of it every day so we have plenty of potable water. It’s boiled and then run through a ceramic filter at least once (usually multiple times) in order to ensure its purity. There are a ton of bottles of water in the kitchen for everyone to use- empty altar wine bottles! Some with the labels still on. When we discovered this one night at dinner it was so hard not to burst out laughing. I guess it’s recycling Kenya style!