[Guest-Post by Tapati Dutta]
It all began almost two decades back, not food per se, but at the hearth of food, the kitchen. A post- lunch pun and sarcasm combined ‘giving-it-back’ conversation between Abhik and Raj Bhaiya, carries its inertia of amusement even today.
This was, Abhik’s and my first workplace, same joining date and I, by all means was elated to meet a Bengali at my workplace on the first day of work. Forget the opening communication, which was classic and comical to the core, the bonding began from the day of introduction itself. Lunch was provided by this organization, where we worked, which in itself, minus its strict rationing and 300 INR deducted from salary for the food provided, was such a boon to me. Since I was new to New Delhi, it comforted the transitioning to the neo-Delhi life. Lunch comprised of flat breads, half-full small bowl of ‘sukhi sabji’; lentils, which one could take a second serve if one ignored the strange looks of other colleagues and Raj Bhaiya, the cook, and curd; again, rationed. Both of us spent around a year and bit more in this organization and moved on, checkered professional journey and pursuing academics, that’s how the in-between two decades look like.
Over the course of my experience and learning, I identify myself a social-scientist in community-health. Currently living with the Ssemanda family in Masaka, Uganda as apart of 11 week internship coursework Advancing Collaboration and Community Training by Indiana University, where I am pursuing my doctoral studies.
Masaka, Uganda, is on the Equator with very known plants and trees of the Tropics – mangoes (muyembe), jackfruits (fene), sugarcane (kikajjo, pronounced 'chi-ca-jjo'), banana (matoke), coffee (mwanyi), corn (kasoly), pineapple (nanasi, guess the ‘a’ is silent), cassava (muwogo), yam (e-jjuni), sweet potatoes (lumonde), passionfruit (butunda), and avocados (kedo, guess that’s a shortened pet name for this overtly common courtyard fruit). The words in italics are the Luganda translation of these fruits/roots; Luganda, the language of Uganda. The topography here is red soil with undulated greens, with an exuberance of the verdant. The Ugandans take pride and associate them with a clan, a clan being either a plant, animal or insect, which that particular clan is not supposed to kill – a process to conserve each species, thereof.
Though most of the flora and fauna are known ‘faces’, a difference than what I’ve seen in India or neighboring Kenya, is that of large stretches of plantations and orchards of these cash crops, rather than the heterogeneous and erratic mixed growth here. People say that the land is extremely fertile and thus, planned large-scale cultivation is not the practice in Uganda. Patches of land in the backyard and front porch, and a banana plantation in the vicinity is enough for the household subsistence.
As part of my work I interact with health care staff at the referral hospital and health centres here. Given the high disease burden in Uganda, vaccination against yellow fever, sensitization on HIV prevention and antenatal care are public-health priorities. Pick up any heath issue, the community sensitization uses analogies with a food/plant – because people associate life, living and lineage with nature. E.g. the flipchart in the image above, which compares ‘warts of cancer of the cervix’ with the cob and infected kernels of the corn. At home, food is cooked once a day, early morning, mostly in wood-charcoal fire. The cooking process is roasted, toasted and boiled, though neo-addition like ‘curry powder’ and ‘macroni’ are also seen. Refrigerators and fans are unknown concepts here and food cooked in the morning is good to be eaten for supper. The magic lies in the cool breeze and that the food is not heated, later, after it is cooked, but gently covered with a piece of banana leaf or a porous metal cover.
Most of the roots I had mentioned earlier, are wrapped in plantain leaves and baked in simmering heat alongwith matoke, the raw bananas. The staple food is mashed matokes, boiled sweet potatoes or/and yam and a groundnut paste called binyobwa. No spice is added to the boiled food. The groundnut paste has some onions and tomatoes to it, somewhat similar to the black gram chutney sometimes served with dosa, though coconut and mustard seeds add an altogether different flavor to it. At times there is boiled rice, which you have with the binyobwa. Occasionally, there are vegetables like cabbage, carrot, bell-pepper, mostly tossed in pounded ginger (pronounced with ga, rather than j), which is used in abundance. Rajma, or red-beans and cow peas are the common pulses consumed, again boiled and then re-heated with some fried onions, ginger, tomatoes and curry powder. Egg is common, more in households who have a poultry, initiated under the donor funded income generation programs.
The other staple is ‘posho’, coarse corn flour cooked like a broth – which the children mostly have with red beans when they are at school. With most of the children studying in boarding schools, where they are kind of bored with the monotony of having ‘posho’, mothers try not to cook it when children are around for vacations – Not just showcasing ‘how’ longitudinally the psycho-social construct of ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ a food builds-up, but also an unique determinant in gradually altering eating patterns of a culture, of generations to come!
Non-vegetarian food is mostly roasted. Pork for the Christians, beef for the Muslims, chicken (coco) at times, and grasshoppers, the delicacy, for everybody. I had my first serve of them last week, crispy, deep- fried and tastes so much like small shrimps- kucho-chingri – Not bad at all. Was so reminded of the Gopal-Bhand tale of tricking his widow aunt and having ‘Lau-Chingri’ at her’s.
A typical weekday begins with some hot water with pounded ginger and a sprinkle of cheap tea-dust and brown sugar. Then comes the day’s internship work and lunch around noon. Work day ends around 4:00 or 5:00 pm and I walk down the red un-metalled lanes. I am hungry by then. I know the food ‘would be’ for supper- the same which I had for lunch – no surprises, not much of choices, either. Just living on the laps of greens, ‘satisfied with adequacy’. Matoke plantations around, and as I walk by, I see children playing with the plantain stock, which we Bengalis relish, the thor (থোড়). They shout out a loud, cheerful 'Bye Moozungu' (foreigner). I smile and wave at them- a Bengali adage playing in my mind – ‘Thor bori kola, kola bori thor – থোড় বড়ি কলা, কলা বড়ি থোড় - the ubiquitous Matoke diet of Uganda!!
Over the course of my experience and learning, I identify myself a social-scientist in community-health. Currently living with the Ssemanda family in Masaka, Uganda as apart of 11 week internship coursework Advancing Collaboration and Community Training by Indiana University, where I am pursuing my doctoral studies.
Masaka, Uganda, is on the Equator with very known plants and trees of the Tropics – mangoes (muyembe), jackfruits (fene), sugarcane (kikajjo, pronounced 'chi-ca-jjo'), banana (matoke), coffee (mwanyi), corn (kasoly), pineapple (nanasi, guess the ‘a’ is silent), cassava (muwogo), yam (e-jjuni), sweet potatoes (lumonde), passionfruit (butunda), and avocados (kedo, guess that’s a shortened pet name for this overtly common courtyard fruit). The words in italics are the Luganda translation of these fruits/roots; Luganda, the language of Uganda. The topography here is red soil with undulated greens, with an exuberance of the verdant. The Ugandans take pride and associate them with a clan, a clan being either a plant, animal or insect, which that particular clan is not supposed to kill – a process to conserve each species, thereof.
Though most of the flora and fauna are known ‘faces’, a difference than what I’ve seen in India or neighboring Kenya, is that of large stretches of plantations and orchards of these cash crops, rather than the heterogeneous and erratic mixed growth here. People say that the land is extremely fertile and thus, planned large-scale cultivation is not the practice in Uganda. Patches of land in the backyard and front porch, and a banana plantation in the vicinity is enough for the household subsistence.
As part of my work I interact with health care staff at the referral hospital and health centres here. Given the high disease burden in Uganda, vaccination against yellow fever, sensitization on HIV prevention and antenatal care are public-health priorities. Pick up any heath issue, the community sensitization uses analogies with a food/plant – because people associate life, living and lineage with nature. E.g. the flipchart in the image above, which compares ‘warts of cancer of the cervix’ with the cob and infected kernels of the corn. At home, food is cooked once a day, early morning, mostly in wood-charcoal fire. The cooking process is roasted, toasted and boiled, though neo-addition like ‘curry powder’ and ‘macroni’ are also seen. Refrigerators and fans are unknown concepts here and food cooked in the morning is good to be eaten for supper. The magic lies in the cool breeze and that the food is not heated, later, after it is cooked, but gently covered with a piece of banana leaf or a porous metal cover.
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| Mrs. Ssemanda preparing the bananas and sweet potatoes for the day |
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| Food laid on the table- Matoke, bineyoba, avocados, and a slice of boiled pumpkin |
Most of the roots I had mentioned earlier, are wrapped in plantain leaves and baked in simmering heat alongwith matoke, the raw bananas. The staple food is mashed matokes, boiled sweet potatoes or/and yam and a groundnut paste called binyobwa. No spice is added to the boiled food. The groundnut paste has some onions and tomatoes to it, somewhat similar to the black gram chutney sometimes served with dosa, though coconut and mustard seeds add an altogether different flavor to it. At times there is boiled rice, which you have with the binyobwa. Occasionally, there are vegetables like cabbage, carrot, bell-pepper, mostly tossed in pounded ginger (pronounced with ga, rather than j), which is used in abundance. Rajma, or red-beans and cow peas are the common pulses consumed, again boiled and then re-heated with some fried onions, ginger, tomatoes and curry powder. Egg is common, more in households who have a poultry, initiated under the donor funded income generation programs.
The other staple is ‘posho’, coarse corn flour cooked like a broth – which the children mostly have with red beans when they are at school. With most of the children studying in boarding schools, where they are kind of bored with the monotony of having ‘posho’, mothers try not to cook it when children are around for vacations – Not just showcasing ‘how’ longitudinally the psycho-social construct of ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ a food builds-up, but also an unique determinant in gradually altering eating patterns of a culture, of generations to come!
 |
| Fried grasshoppers |
Non-vegetarian food is mostly roasted. Pork for the Christians, beef for the Muslims, chicken (coco) at times, and grasshoppers, the delicacy, for everybody. I had my first serve of them last week, crispy, deep- fried and tastes so much like small shrimps- kucho-chingri – Not bad at all. Was so reminded of the Gopal-Bhand tale of tricking his widow aunt and having ‘Lau-Chingri’ at her’s.
A typical weekday begins with some hot water with pounded ginger and a sprinkle of cheap tea-dust and brown sugar. Then comes the day’s internship work and lunch around noon. Work day ends around 4:00 or 5:00 pm and I walk down the red un-metalled lanes. I am hungry by then. I know the food ‘would be’ for supper- the same which I had for lunch – no surprises, not much of choices, either. Just living on the laps of greens, ‘satisfied with adequacy’. Matoke plantations around, and as I walk by, I see children playing with the plantain stock, which we Bengalis relish, the thor (থোড়). They shout out a loud, cheerful 'Bye Moozungu' (foreigner). I smile and wave at them- a Bengali adage playing in my mind – ‘Thor bori kola, kola bori thor – থোড় বড়ি কলা, কলা বড়ি থোড় - the ubiquitous Matoke diet of Uganda!!
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