Today I did not go to my office and instead worked from home and ran a few errands (quick trip to the Tanzanian High Commission to get our tourist visas for...Zanzibar!). The best of these errands was a trip to Kimironko market with Patricia. Kimironko is a huge and very busy market area with sections for fabric (waxes), clothing, shoes, household goods, baskets and food. We bought a few more hand-woven baskets and some fabric but I was excited to get to the food. The food section is amazing, baskets full of beans/Ibihyimbo of all different colors, piles of vegetables and fruits and pyramids of flour.
Some weeks back I wrote about our food difficulties but today I'm going to quickly write about some of the foods I'm really enjoying here. First of all, if you like avocadoes then this is the place for you - avocadoes are large, plentiful and delicious. I've made a guacamole (OK, so there are no tortilla chips worth eating here) and at least once a week we have bean and rice burritos stuffed with avocado. Other vegetables that we can buy fresh and eat include aubergine, cabbage, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and lettuce. Now you may have heard the warning for travellers to Africa - if you can't peel it or cook it, you can't eat it; and while that is true, our housekeeper learned many years ago from some previous employers a method of washing our vegetables in "medicine" so that our stomachs can handle them. I think the medicine is some type of low intensity chlorine and it seems to work.
Fruits make me very very happy here - we get fresh pineapple, bananas, papaya, mango, passion fruit and maracuja. I'm mad about maracuja and passionate about passion fruit. Maracuja is a golden passion fruit that is incredibly tasty, sweet and juicy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_edulis. Patricia even made a maracuja mousse one night that was really delicious. The bananas are a different variety from what we are used to, smaller and less sweet but still lovely. Bananas grow all over this country and there are larger ones (more expensive) and then green ones that can be cooked into Matoke which is a delicious cooked banana mash with vegetables. The first time I ate Matoke I thought it was some type of potato.
Today's big (and I mean big) find was a jackfruit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit). This thing weighed about 6 pounds and Patricia carried it home from the market like a little baby which prompted much laughing and stares from the Rwandans who would never carry anything without a bag of some sort much less treat it like a little baby. We ate it at lunch and it was pretty good, a bit like a less sweet banana with these huge pits that I want to make into beads. Patricia mixed the jackfruit, banana and maracuja into a vanilla yogurt and declared it delicious. We also bought part of a cane sugar stalk and all of us are sucking and snacking on the sweet juice this afternoon.
I looked all over the market today for tree tomatoes and while I did not find them, I usually enjoy a daily dose of tree tomato juice after my workout. As a substitute, today I made some tea from moringa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa) and leaves lemongrass. I like it, but Chantal, our housekeeper, says that moringa is not good tasting and is only a medicine. Its true, moringa is an amazing leaf loaded with vitamins, amino acids and protein.
Rwandan cuisine in general is nothing to write home or even blog home about. Saadya and Nava in particular have had a hard time finding food they like because the western look alikes (eggs, milk products, pizza, french fries, etc.) taste nothing like what they are used to. We have found a couple of bakeries that make breads that we all like and for unbelievable prices have been able to buy some jams and canned foods imported from Europe. If only Saadya ate more fruits and vegetables he would be much better off but he is a meat and potato boy from way back and Rwanda will not convert him. Nava enjoys the fruits, eats some vegetables and has become a big fan of our weekly burrito night.
As for me, I could be satisfied with my avoka, matoke, inkinyomoro, moringa tea, marakuja and invanje.
I would love to see pictures of the market!
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