Home on the Range: Our Ugandan diet (revised edition)

We originally wrote a blog about our diet in Uganda several years ago, shortly after arriving in Ugand in 2012. A few years have passed and our diet has changed. There are so many more food items available now in Soroti than there were 3+ years ago. For instance, maize porridge is no longer our go-to breakfast. Now we can go to the local supermarket in town and pick up a box of corn flakes if we want. I (Colin) have never been much of a breakfast eater, unless it's breakfast burritos and then I can eat breakfast all day long, however breakfast burritos do not exist in Obule. When I do eat breakfast I go for the cassava chips, chapati, or occasional artery-clogging "rolex." Ronnie has become a master tortilla maker and I eat those by the dozen when she makes a batch. Ronnie and the kids do eat porridge from time to time, cereal, or even yoghurt for breakfast.

Pilau rice

two big pots of pilau (rice and beef)

passion fruit

For lunch I eat beans and posh mainly when we are drilling. I love Ugandan food and it loves me. When we are out on the drilling site we usually have a cook that prepares beans much the same way as you'd get in Texas; similar to pintos. We always have a starch to go with them and it is usually posh or atapa. Posho is maize flour cooked in boiling water. It thickens up quite a bit and takes on the consistency of super thick, finley ground grits. Atapa is made from cassava flour mixed with either sweet potatoes, millet or sorghum. It has a unique consistency. The best thing I can think to compare it to would be sourdough bread starter - like the dough but before you bake it. It has a gritty texture and a slightly sour taste depending on how it is prepared. The diet changes greatly based on the season. For instance, during mango season we eat mango by the basin full. During maize season we eat tons of roasted maize. During sweet potato season we eat a lot of boiled potatoes. When cassava is ready we eat a lot of boiled cassava. The vegetable we eat are few but we will occasionally eat cow peas, severel types of greens. Eboo is my favorite green and it comes from the leave sod the Amaranthus plant. It is slimy like boiled okra and it usually prepared with g-nut paste (ground up peanuts). Every once in awhile we'll eat pork muchomo (crispy pork). We work a good bit around Lake Kyoga so we are usually served Nile perch or tilapia when drilling in Pingire.

typical produce found at market. Beans, irish potatoes, avocados, etc.

Our diet at home is pretty regular. We do not eat much meat, but Ronnie does get chicken in town. We eat a lot of pasta, soups, and rice dishes. Our major vegetable are irish potaoes, onions, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Fruit is readily available much of the year and we eat pineapple, passion fruit, oranges, and bananas. Ronnie has learned to cook very well with limited ingredients. She has a number of thing she cooks on a regular basis and all are wonderful. For instance, she can cook some of the best pancakes you ever laid lips on. Her homemade pasta sauce is excellent, and her soups phenomenal.

Reclining after another of Veronica's delicious meals.

Atapa and pasted meat. Pasted meat is smoked beef cooked in a peanut sauce.

Folks eating atap and and pasted meat.

Fresh fish from Lake Kyoga.

Rose mingling the posho.

Every once in awhile I'll eat something out of the ordinary like a queen termite (tastes kind of like string cheese but with the consistency of a hard-boiled egg yolk). I try and steer clear of any offals or other weird squiggly bits. I did eat an eel-like thing awhile back that was like eating a loaf of wet Mrs. Baird bread. It tasted fishy but felt like wet bread. We always eat fried white ants after the first big rains. They are fairly good to eat, but the legs can be a little scratchy in your throat and cause you to cough. Then there was the one time Dan, Emma, Jacob, and I sat down and ate 53 oranges in one sitting. Obviously we don't eat 53 oranges a day, but that day was Vitamin C day.

53 oranges eaten in one sitting

the queen termite

cooking the queen termite over the fire

Now our Kampala diet is vastly different from our everyday diet.

The Little Donkey mexican food restaurant

Now when we take a trip down to the big city - Kampala - we eat! The Little Donkey is my personal favorite because it is good Mexican food. Carne asada, pollo de bourbon, fish tacos, steak tacos, quesadillas, chimichangas, hibiscus margaritas, and chips and salsa. If only they had iced tea...
We also discovered Indian food. I did not like Indian food for a long time. I thought all Indian food was bad curry dishes, until we discovered Khazana the Veranda and their chicken tikka masala and butter chicken. Silas discover pistachio ice cream while in Kamapala. I know he must think about it regularly because I know he sure talks about it enough. Then we also eat our fair share of pizza from an Italian cafe called Caffe Roma. Excellent pizza and calzones and pasta dishes!