Rwandan Cuisine: Lunch and Dinner

Let me continue sharing my experience with Rwandan food to build upon my last post about breakfast.

Bananas are a staple in Rwanda and there is another type, shown here, that is always cooked before eating.  It is the size of most bananas found in the USA but it is always green.  These are treated like potatoes and boiled or fried.  In the picture we are making ‘chips’ and frying them.

Final product!  You can see the banana chips in this picture.  There is also rice, a staple, as well as a flavorful sauce made with eggplant, carrots and cabbage.  Every meal is very starchy with at least two different forms.  Here it is ‘only’ the banana chips and rice, but they also commonly have [mushy, overcooked] spaghetti or cassava bread, which I will explain later.  It is interesting to me, because in Ghana there was a similar starchy consistency to the meals, but people tended to eat one large meal only.  Here people pile their plates very full for all meals.

Another example of a typical meal.  The sauce is made with eggplant, carrots, and peppers.  Avocado is on the side along with chips made from potatoes, so your run of the mill steak fries.  They are just as likely to boil the potatoes; it is only by coincidence that both plates have fried foods. 

Here is dodo, which we went out to garden next to the house to cut and then brought it to use for a sauce.  It is great to eat green vegetables as seems to be a bit uncommon.  The leaf is consumed and is very flavorful, a bit bitter, similar to spinach, but with an herby flavor.  For this meal it was boiled and some groundnut (peanut) flour was added to the sauce.

Cassava bread

We also had cassava bread to eat with the sauce.  Cassava flour is mixed with water and boiled together (all unmeasured, of course).  It is then stirred and stirred until it becomes the consistency of spongy dough.  It is difficult to stir so it is held between the feet to keep it still and two hands use the spoon.  I can think of nothing in the US that is eaten with this texture and I believe it is an acquired taste, but I had similar food often enough in Ghana that I really love it.  People traditionally eat with their hands to scoop up sauce rather than using utensils.

Final product!

 The bread on the upper left is cassava bread, the sauce over the rice in the upper right are made with beans and cabbage.  Beans are very common here and eaten with almost every meal.  Rwandans do not approve of my portion size.  They are constantly encouraging me to get up and have more, asking if I do not like the food or asking if I wish to lose weight.  But the truth is, after a meal I am stuffed.  I don’t know how they do it!

Meat is rarely eaten in Rwanda.  It is more commonly consumed to entertain guests, so we had it often with the Benebikira sisters, but otherwise not more than once a week.  Common meats are goat, chicken, and beef.  We had fish once.  I believe goat is most commonly eaten of all meat. 

And lastly is akabanga! This little gem is Rwandan hot sauce.  It is sold in containers about two inches tall and is dispensed with a dropper.  That’s right, a dropper, because so little is needed before your mouth is on fire.  In fact, we are advised told to wash hands after handling it to prevent from us burning our eyes if we touch them after using the dropper.

Community Day

Rwanda has a designated day called Umuganda or Community Day where everyone comes together to volunteer for a particular project in their community. It's a traditional idea that kind of faded away but Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, reinstituted the model after the genocide with the belief that it would help heal the communities.  I was eager to attend the event last month to see what it was all about!

To prepare, Marcella and I asked what we should bring to the worksite and the teachers suggested machetes, hoes or “slashers” (a tool for cutting grass, see the picture above). Darn. I forgot to pack any of that!  I took that time to explain how I cut the grass at home- sit on a riding lawn mower and basically wait for the task to be over.  They laughed out loud at this idea.  And I felt pretty stupid because I had always dreaded and complained about the chore.

The next morning I was regretting my commitment to go when we left the house bright and early at 8:00 AM.  On the way, some people were clearly on their way to the worksite but many were just walking to their usual Saturday destinations. I felt pretty cocky when a man on the main road in charge of Umuganda, shamed nonparticipating people by saying into his megaphone “Even the muzungu (white people) are coming to Community Day! Why aren’t you?”

We showed up at the site on a side dirt road, where it turned out most people didn’t have a tool either and everyone was taking turns working.  Of course, everyone crowds around Marcella and I to see our physical labor skills, so I grab the hoe and try to push it into the ground.  Key word is try because the ground is rock hard and the Rwandans laughed hysterically at me for my unsuccessful attempt.  However, I looked around and noticed mostly men hoeing-  they just let me for comedic appeal :p   After my botched hoeing attempt I helped shovel away the freshly turned earth, which was more doable for me although it resulted in no less laughter among the Rwandans. A few Rwandans I spoke to were fascinated that I had ever used a hoe or shovel before, although I couldn’t say the same about a machete or slasher and was NOT about to try to learn with an audience.

End of event and people are heading home.

Throughout the day we slowly learned that the community was helping to repair a road that goes around Nyamata and was now covered with grass, holes and erosion strips.  As men were hoeing the side they found a pile of abandoned cinder blocks that I carried to fill the holes for about 30 minutes.  Now the locals seemed impressed and kept suggested I was tired and might need to rest.  But I refused, still trying to prove myself.

 In the end, I think people were surprised to see us, considering foreigners usually don’t typically come.  And despite their laughing, people definitely respected us for working so hard to integrate into the community and do our part.

Rwandan Cuisine: Breakfast

I suppose the first part of a food blog should be seeing where the magic happens.  This is the kitchen!  Notice the lack of appliances, we have a coffee maker and that’s about it.  There is also a can opener, which is rare, but no vegetable peeler or rice maker and most devastating to me: no food processor.

A typical fully stocked refrigerator.  Almost everything they eat is bought from the local market where people from the community man their tables and sell produce that they have made.  The milk and yogurt (not pictured here) comes from the school’s own dairy farm.

However, in Save when we stayed with the Benebikira Sisters, they put us up in a guest apartment that was clearly specially suited for Western tastes.  The most abnormal objects in the refrigerator are the several types of juice (they typically will drink only mango and ‘passion squash’), bread, apples, jam and the cheese. 

So let’s get back to the typical meal for Rwandans.  The first thing I noticed is people use their stoves much more than the oven.  In fact, the only time I have seen an oven in use here was for an American making her own food.  Another important feature of Rwandan food is absolutely nothing is measured, even for making rice!  This is likely due to the previously mentioned fact that there is little baking, but it is always surprising to me that everything works out.

Breakfast is usually a sweet drink consumed from a mug.  It is prepared on the stove and then put into a thermos to keep it hot for any stragglers as well as to remove the tea leaves by pouring the liquid through a filter.  The three options for breakfast are usually yogurt (a thin, drinkable form of yogurt), tea or porridge, but rarely more than one of these options.  In addition, people will eat a hot dog looking piece of bread and some bananas.

Porridge, another drinkable food.  Boiling water, hot milk and flour made from various cereals are mixed to create the consistency of thin applesauce.  Then people add as much sugar as they prefer, which is usually abundant for Rwandans.  I have seen people add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar to a single mug.  They told me they add that much because they do not eat dessert, so it is their only form of sweetness.  The sugar in the picture is raw sugar and it is the only type I have seen in the country so far.

Tea (about 60% milk and the rest water).  This is also served to the teachers everyday during break at school.  Rwandans love tea!  Again, people add abundant amounts of sugar to their mug.

Bananas are popular at all times of day and are tiny!