A taste of Kampala

It's been over a week now since I arrived in Kampala and I'm starting to feel settled in - of course, a lot of that has to do with how much great food there is here. While a Ugandan colleague described the food as "bland," I would say that at least there is a lot of variety and we have hot sauce stocked in the office kitchen. Maybe I'll start to get bored in a few months, but for now, I'm more than happy spending my time outdoors rather than in the kitchen :)

What I've eaten so far

"YOU HAVE TO TRY ROLEX!" was probably the most consistent reaction when I spoke with people who had spent time in Uganda. So last night, when my boda driver offered to take me to get some rolex on the way to my apartment, I happily obliged. Key ingredients: egg and chapati. What you see in the picture to the right is essentially an omelette cooking on a rounded metal hotplate over a charcoal cook stove. Before the eggs cooked too thoroughly, he threw a chapati on top. 

Chapati is like a mix between a tortilla, Indian roti, and Malaysia roti prata. I have to imagine its prevalence in Ugandan cuisine is a result of the large Indian population in Uganda. It’s not as dry as roti, but not as flakey or thick as roti prata. Anyway, once the chapati is added, he presses it to the eggs to get them to stick together. Then, he flips it over and adds a few final ingredients before rolling everything up. This particular stand had fresh tomatoes and cabbage. It seems like there may be more variety and it just depends where you go. Once it’s rolled, it gets put into a plastic bag (think newspaper bag) which then gets put into a paper bag to help with the heat as well as the excessive amount of grease haha.   

Why is it called rolex? Apparently the name came about from Ugandans saying "rolled eggs" or "roll of eggs" in an Lugandan accent. It seems like the farther you are from the center of town, the better the rolexes are...I'll be sure to taste test my way around and report back soon!

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So...more about grasshoppers...apparently there are two grasshopper seasons each year. Lucky me, I got here at the perfect time. Grasshoppers are attracted to light, so around Kampala you can find parking lots / fields that look like the picture to the left. I didn't want to venture too close, for obvious reasons, but could see plenty of grasshoppers flying (err...hopping?) from a distance. The set up is essentially a bunch of corrugated metal used to create four walls. Then, really bright lights shine down and the grasshoppers are tricked and jump in! I'm not entirely sure what happens once they get in there...but somehow people catch them and then cook them for everyone to enjoy :) 

Disclaimer, the picture here I snagged while waiting at a coffee shop. These aren't the little guys I ate, but look pretty similar. Though, it looks like this might have been a bit of an upgrade because I can see little bits of onion tossed in there too.

​Who knew that grasshopper is a great treat to have with your morning latte? 

Matoke is another Ugandan staple. Uganda is a huge banana producer. I tried to find a good stat to throw in here...but while some potentially questionable sites (like this or this) claim that Uganda produces the most bananas in the world after India, FAOSTAT, which seems more legit, doesn't even place them in the top 5. Wikipedia, which claims to use FAOSTAT data for bananas and plantains for 2012, puts Uganda as the third largest producer after India and China.

So, long story short, it's safe to say, Ugandans produce and eat a shit ton of bananas. 

The green bananas you see to the right are the types used for matoke. They're peeled and then steamed for a few hours, at which time they're softer and mashable. Frequently, matoke is eaten with "gnut" sauce which I recently found out is short for groundnut sauce, not a reference to how baller the sauce is. Still unclear why it's purple (see lunch photo in a previous post), but it tastes good so I'll continue happily eating it.

**Okay, I couldn't stay confused about all the data...what I was doing wrong was not looking at the plantains data like Wikipedia (obvi the most reliable) did. Uganda comes in at the top for plantain production which gives them a significant boost up the list. If you want to geek out on agricultural data, I highly recommend checking out the FAOSTAT "browse data" tab...it's super interactive and user friendly which is usually not the case for publicly available large data sets in my little experience.

I love popcorn which is great because it seems like Ugandans do too! Not only do they have carnival poppers (not sure what they're called) at a lot of corner stores and events, you can also buy pre-popped popcorn at the grocery store. It's almost like SkinnyPop?

And of course, Uganda has amazing fresh fruits! Passion fruit, mango, avocado, pineapple, and more! What's awesome is that I can continue to be super lazy and not even cut my own fruit. There is a woman who provides fresh fruit to the office each day...I'm going to get spoiled! I just go to the fridge and look for my tupperware with my name on it. Fruit and my lunch delivered for $2.50 a day will be my not so guilty splurge. 

​On Mondays and Wednesdays (or apparently just whenever there's availability) we also get fresh loaves of bread in the mornings. Check out that hearty multigrain with chunky peanut butter. YUM. If it weren't so unpredictable, I'd never eat breakfast at home anymore. And don't worry, I'm not using hot sauce on my fruit or toast (yet) - just wanted to showcase that...it's local...I think, and pretty good! Had a slight hint of BBQ flavor which at first I wasn't a fan of but it's hardly noticeable anymore.

International Cuisine

With the recently released Hello Food, food delivery app (think Grubhub / Seamless without an integrated payment system), I can access a huge variety of cuisines without even leaving my office / apartment. Within a delivery radius of my office, I can order Thai, Chinese, Italian, American (burgers, salads, wraps, etc.)...you get the idea. That said, it's apparently and understandably not all that great. At dinner last week, a German colleague said that the two types of food that are better in Uganda compared to home are Ethiopian and Indian. From the little of both I've tried, so far, I'd agree. 
 
Left: mysore dosa from Chaat House, which was amazing. @Mia Divecha, I think you'd approve :)
​Center: tiffin delivery we ordered to the office last week. Just found out that the non-veg option which I chose was goat liver (and potentially chicken hearts?)...we're specifying a chicken meat preference next time we order haha
Right: this "American Garden" brand has been in most of the grocery stores I've been to. I checked the labels and all the products are actually made in the states, it's not just a branding thing. Regardless, besides the peanut butter, their stuff leaves a lot to be desired.

Other random things...

• Ugandans (unironicaly) LOVE smirnoff ice
• How cool are these resealable aluminum cans to the left? 
• Have you ever seen such a large Vaseline selection?
• I made friends!