One of my favorite things in the world is to spend a day cooking.  Nothing makes me happier than piling the ingredients for a bunch of recipes on the counter and whiling away the next few hours peeling, chopping, mixing, seasoning, and just generally acting like a mad culinary scientist cackling away in glee.  I’m certainly no gourmet; I probably wouldn’t even qualify as a “foodie.”  But I do love it and typically think of myself as a fairly proficient cook.  So ever since I was first served it, I have wanted to try my hand at cooking ugali.

Ugali, for the uninitiated, is a staple of Tanzanian cuisine.  Made of maize flour, the best way I can describe it is that it resembles what you might end up with if polenta had a stickier consistency and was made with finer milled grain.  It doesn’t have much of a taste- it is primarily a vehicle for moving food to your mouth.  When served, it looks like a large white blob of dough; the diner pulls off a piece, rolls it in his or her right hand to form a ball, makes an indention with the thumb, and then uses this to scoop up various other foodstuffs.  Most meals in Tanzania begin with either ugali or rice as a base, served with meat alone or one or more various stew-like sauces (containing some combination of beans, meat, and vegetables).  In fact, the Swahili word for food, chakula, typically actually refers to ugali or rice.  The rest are considered side dishes.

However, despite its ubiquitous nature among Tanzanians, it is rarely served to wazungu.  It is assumed that we won’t like it.  In most cases, unless you specifically ask for it, the default for dishes served to foreigners will be rice or French fries.  The first time I had it was two years ago, when I made a special request to Seki, the housekeeper at the guest house where I was staying.  She asked me several times if I was sure I wanted it, with an incredulous look on her face.  When I reassured her that I was in earnest, she complied, and then sat down at the table to watch me eat it.  Given its mild but pleasant flavor, I can only assume that it is the clumsy, fumbling spectacle of a first-time eater trying to time the rolling of the ugali for just the right moment between “perfect consistency for scooping food” and “crumbling mess disintegrating into the side dish” that makes Tanzanians think foreigners don’t enjoy eating it.

Anne and Eliudi, waiting for water to boil

Since that first time, I’ve had the opportunity to eat ugali a few times and it has grown on me (not least because I’ve gotten slightly more coordinated with it).  So just as with all foods I like, a small itch has been growing to try making it myself.  Unfortunately, all of our meals are made for us by the kitchen staff here at the language school and they haven’t made ugali yet, so there has been no time to ask for instruction.  But this week, I finally had my chance.  Anne was going over to the house of one of the language school staff members, Eliudi, for dinner and asked if I wanted to join.  Of course I said yes.

On the menu was salted fish served with a tomato sauce and ugali.  I was psyched.  I figured the process of making ugali couldn’t be that different from rice, oatmeal, couscous, quinoa, or any other grain + water concoction.  Turns out it’s not, but it does takes some serious muscle!  We cooked using a small charcoal stove in the corner of the kitchen.  Water boiling, Eliudi poured the flour into the pot.  At this point, I tried to figure out what the proportions of water to flour should be.  The conversation went something like this:

“How much flour do you add?”

“It depends on how many people you are cooking for.”

“So for the three of us, how much did you add?”

“Enough for how much water is in the pot.”

“How much water is in the pot?
“I didn’t measure.  I just poured it in.”

“So how do you know how much flour to add?”

“You just add what you need for the water.”

“So how do you know how much you need?”

“Just watch it.  If you need more, then you add more.”

Needless to say, I never did really figure out the flour to water ratio.  I understand this.  I don’t measure everything when I am cooking either, especially when I am cooking dishes I’ve made hundreds of times before.  But despite watching that pot closely, I couldn’t tell you what signals the pot was giving off to indicate another handful of grain was needed or when.

Fish stew

The cooks in action

Next came the stirring.  Oh man, the stirring.  Forget kettlebells, this will be the next hot workout in trendy gyms nationwide.  With a large wooden spoon, more like a paddle really, you have to almost whip the ugali into shape.  Eliudi let Anne and I each take a stab at it before laughing and stepping in.  It’s a little galling to fall short of making what is essentially thick polenta.   So Anne and I primarily played the role of spectator, chopping tomatoes and stirring the fish stew, while Eliudi handled the ugali.

It was all worth it in the end though.  We had a lovely dinner, together with my first taste of Tanzanian wine- a red from Dodoma, said to pair nicely with “game meat.”  After a little more trial and error, I know I will be able to create my very own fusion cuisine.  I’m thinking ugali would go well with a nice thick Guinness-infused meat and potato stew.  Now where to get the Guinness…

Tah-Dah!

Demonstrating the ugali-rolling technique