Watch out for the matooke

Ok, so in my family we love to eat. We all love to cook and therefore love to eat. The first thing my family wanted to know about when I first wrote home was the food we ate. So I am going to let all of you in on what we will be eating while we are down there.

First off, they love their matooke. Basically, matooke consists of hard bananas that have been peeled, boiled and mashed. Think of mashed potatoes only with bananas. As you can expect, it is kinda a thick and a little bland. However, it was only after I returned home that I realized why they all LOVE matooke. It is because they eat with their hands. So the thickness of the matooke helps them pick up the pieces of rice or beans that would be hard to grab with just your fingers. I thought of this last night as I used a piece of bread to soak up the rest of my soup. They use their matooke like I used my slice of bread.

So besides matooke what do we eat. Well like I mentioned earlier, we eat rice and beans. They also have Irish potatoes...we have our Idaho potatoes and they have their Irish potatoes. I can't describe the difference, but man they are so good. They make a fabulous bean sauce, basically all the bean sauce consists of are peanuts ground into a gravy. It goes great over the potatoes and rice.
As far as meat goes, we don't eat that much while we are there. We will have chicken occasionally, but it isn't the same type of chicken we are use to. Let's be honest, most things in Africa are skinny (because of malnutrition) and that goes for the animals too. So there just isn't much meat on those chicken legs. The chicken usually comes breaded and fried. We also have fish, and for someone who doesn't eat fish...I would have to say it wasn't all that bad. Because Lake Victoria makes up part of the southern boarder of Uganda they eat a lot of fish. Beef is a rare things, but goat is usually on the menus at any restaurant. I would be brave and try it once, after all, how many people can say they ate goat?

For breakfast we eat hard boiled eggs most of the time. Bread is very limited and tends to be dry, so if you are going to eat the bread make sure Dr. Grenney has bought the honey that he loves! Occasionally we will get an omlete and that is a nice change. Don't be suprised to see us eating french fries for breakfast as well.

All in all I was pleasantly surprised with the food. A few of the team members got sick last trip and we can only assume it was because of the food. But really, one day out of thirty isn't bad. But after a month of matooke we were ready for some good ol' American food.