I spent the previous fall semester in South Africa on another SIT program and found the food to be, on the whole, rather unsurprising. Uganda, on the other hand, has a unique food repertoire. And, as much of the SIT experience is based on homestays, my food experience was a surprisingly central part of my semester.
The students on my program made the joke that Ugandans only make ten types of food, and seven of them are carbs. I made a list, and this isn’t entirely true, but the hyperbole is based on fact.
The carbs, which are like the baseline of all meals, are as follows: chapati (a flatbread similar to naan), rice (white), bread (store-bought, dry, and the whitest, most Wonder-bread-like I’ve eaten), Irish potatoes (which they just call Irish), and matooke (a type of banana related to the yellow ones we eat – picked very green, peeled like potatoes, and steamed wrapped in banana leaves). There is also sweet potatoes, yam, and cassava, but my families did not make these.
The other food included greens (cooked – apparently there was a variety, but my family made a bitter kind that put me off trying other kinds), beans, groundnut sauce (a sort of gravy-textured sauce made from peanuts, which they call groundnuts), and meat – predominantly chicken, pork, and beef in my house, although goat is also fairly common. Despite the variety and cheapness of fruits and vegetables, these did not make up significant portions on my meals with my families – the occasional avocado with dinner, jackfruit (the huge, bumpy green fruit that costs something like $26 at a supermarket and is used as the flavor of banana Laffy Taffys) for a snack, and bananas all the time. At the SIT office, there was watermelon, pineapple, papaya, and mango.
While the food itself was not bad (except, in my experience, the greens and the meat that was cooked in a weird, watery sauce), the relative monotony of it made for a challenge. When we went into the six-week research period and did not live with host families, I did not eat any Ugandan food, and I found I missed beans and rice, or beans and matooke.
There are two notable street-food phenomenon. The first is what we unceremoniously referred to as ‘street meat’ – any meat cooked on the street. 95% of Ugandans rely on wood and charcoal to cook their food, so street meat was cooked over open flames on metal grills. My friend and I tried it once, but we didn’t choose a good vendor from the multitude near our house. The chicken tasted like smoke and was rubbery. I also got pork on a stick, which I think was wrapped in chicken skin, and it made me unreasonably squeamish and I couldn’t try it. Again, other students had amazing street meat, and we even stopped on the way to the airport for two to buy their last meal.
The second phenomenon are Rolexes – like the watch, except the gritty part isn’t diamonds, it’s dirt. It is essentially a flat omelet – I think they’re called frittatas – put on a chapati and rolled into a burrito shape. Rolled = Rolex. If you’re lucky, the vendor cuts up onion, tomato, and/or green bell pepper into the eggs. When the frittata is flipped, the chapati is placed on top and then flipped over one last time when the eggs are done to warm the other side. It is greasy, cheap (UGX 1,500, which is less than 50 cents), makes you feel a little sick, and completely delicious. Rolexes are the food I will miss most.
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International Studies and African/African American Studies major Alex Oldham spent the spring 2018 semester in Uganda through SIT with the help of our our Office of Study Abroad Scholarship.
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