Some reflections on eating rice and beans, and spinach for 3 nights....plus recipes.

First, I have to say that this is comfort food to me, since this was my standard meal while I was in the Peace Corps many years ago.  So, I have been reminiscing and also thinking about contrasts between cooking this simple meal in my kitchen in the U.S. and cooking it in Tanzania.

First, I did not go to the market every day this week and buy just enough for one night.
I did not skimp on the vegetable oil I used to fry my spinach.  Vegetable oil was so precious in Tanzania.  It was expensive and we didn't always have it.  We would buy a little bit at a time.
I did not have to gather fire wood to cook with, and I did not have to keep a fire lit for 3 hours to cook beans.
I did not have to grate or soak the coconut in order to have coconut milk to flavor the beans -- I bought it in a can.
I have a refrigerator, so saving leftovers didn't seem quite as risky.
There is nothing like the aroma or the flavor of fresh rice -- rice that is fresh from the harvest.  I have never tasted rice like that in the U.S.
Being full of rice and beans and spinach still feels really good.

One way that people in Tanzania compliment good food is to say it is "tamu," which literally means "sweet."  When I heard this description of a bean dish one time early on in my PC years, I figured the cook must have added some sugar.  (After all, we put sugar in baked beans, right?)  So, the next time I made beans I added some sugar.  Boy, did my guests laugh!  They laughed and laughed and laughed!  And then laughed some more!  Haha!  She thinks "tamu" means put sugar in!  Hahahahaha!  I didn't do that again.  But my cooking improved, and after a while I could make beans that were really tamu (without sugar).

Chris McCandless


Chris' beans with coconut milk:  (maharagwe kwa nazi)

Soak a bag of small red beans overnight.  Cook them on a low boil until they are cooked (2 and a half to three hours-ish?)
Have just enough liquid left in the pan that you can mash some of the beans with a potato masher and have a thick-ish broth.
Fry an onion and some garlic and a tomato.  Add to the beans with some salt, a little dried red chili pepper, and some coconut milk.  Simmer to let the flavors blend. Sometimes we add some turmeric, too.  Mash some of the beans a little more if the broth is too thin.

Chris' spinach with peanuts: (mchicha kwa karanga):
Chop or mash some peanuts until they are finely mashed/chopped.  Fry some onion and garlic and tomato.  Add spinach and some salt and fry 'til it is just cooked (not too long!).  Stir in the mashed peanuts.

These are staple foods and are eaten over rice, with ugali (which is like grits, but stiffer), or with chapatis.

This is a picture of an "mbuzi," which literally means "goat," but is actually a coconut grater.  You sit on the stool, and grate the coconut over the blade into a bowl.  It takes about half an hour to grate a whole coconut.  Then, you soak the grated coconut meat in water and wring it out.  The coconut "milk" is the fat, which rises to the top.  You skim this off to use as a flavoring in various dishes.