This episode is one of those I am at home in the USA and wondering what I should talk about. Well food is something I get asked about a lot both from the standpoint of what do I eat in Tanzania and what do I miss the most from the USA. To be honest that has changed some over the 10 years I have spent in Tanzania because I have moved from a remote banking town to more of a tourist banking town. (Banking town is what most people who live in very rural areas refer to as a town with hotels, banks, cell phone services and “grocery stores”) Even the need for a banking town has changed as cell phone services now exist in my current village.

So when I lived in the Singida region, I was only coming home once a year and the village I lived in had very few resources for food. Despite many tribes herding cows, goats and sheep it is very rare for them to eat one of those animals. Chickens are the most common meat consumed. Singida had the best chickens in the country so when I visited my banking town at that time I ate a lot of kuku nusu pamoja chipsi which is half a chicken with chips. But Singida also was great for dish that is my favorite Tanzania dish and that is Chipsi Mayai or a french fry omelet. Yes it is a good as that sounds. I have actually gotten pretty good at making it myself when I am home in the states.

After leaving Singida region and moving to the Kilimanjaro/Manyara regions (technically my village is in Manyara but Moshi is in Kilimanjaro region. Moshi is the tourist town I go to get supplies and food). Because Moshi is the jumping off point for hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa, it has much better food choices for tourists and hungry missionaries. Other missionaries and all my Tanzania friends joke about I always know the good places to eat. It is a Hendrix trait regardless of where we are at in the world. My oldest brother always finds great places to eat regardless of where his travels took him.

I now even have a good place to get a salad though it is different than any you will see in the USA. At the Sugar Plantation I drive through to get to Moshi they have a golf course and a club like restaurant but it is open for all. They serve great food there but my favorite has become their Cobb salad. It is served on a flat plate with a little spinach or lettuce on the bottom (a couple of leaves). Over that they put a row of cubed or small tomatoes, a row of avocado, a row of cheese cubes, a row of bacon bits, a row of chicken cut into cubes, and a row hard boiled eggs. A white liquid with no flavor is drizzled across the top. This has quelled my deep desire to get a good salad when I get home though I still like the one at Cooper River, California Dreamin or J Peters (they all have the same menu and salad with the Hot Honey Mustard Bacon Dressing).

Blossom’s Cafe is the best hamburger in town though most of the ground beef is lacking the fat content to keep them properly together. My favorite meal in Moshi is at the Jackfruit Cafe in the shanty town part of Moshi and it is a four meat pizza. Once again that is different than what you think it will be. They put a different meat on each quarter of the pizza. The reason I like this one is that it has a decent amount of cheese and they don’t skimp on the meats. It has salami, bacon, bbq chicken, and ham.

If you are with a group in Moshi, I strongly recommend going to the Green Bamboo restaurant on the grounds of the Uhuru Lutheran Hostel/Hotel. With a group you can order a half or full kilogram of different types of grilled meats. That way everyone can try different things unless they order the fish which is pretty much a one person meal.

Now everything I have talked about so far are treats I get in town typically once a week. So what do I eat the rest of the week? Nothing as exciting as the things I just mentioned. It is difficult for a diabetic to find good foods in Tanzania. They do have No sugar added Jelly and some fruit juices like apple and cranberry. Both still have a lot of sugar but it is more natural. The Jellies are horrible! The juices are great. Every so often I can find sugar free Peanut butter which is great because it will not be like the local Peanut Butter which you have to mix the oil into so it comes out either liquid or in clumps that will not spread. Bread is not great here because it has large holes in the bread like they don’t punch it down after letting it rise. I make a lot of chapati or tortilla type bread where I mix some brown flour, water and oil then roll it flat and cook it on the skillet. Their chapati has some sugar added to it but I don’t do that. This is normally my lunch on site.

For dinners I do a lot of different things from eggs and grits mix I bring from home (instant not real), sometimes I make soup from mixes and boiling water or oat mill type dishes since Oats are easy to find in TZ. I also get SPAM singles in the USA to mix in with the eggs sometimes or eat like a sandwhich.

Several nights a week I make a pasta dish using either canned tuna (sometimes available), dehydrated ground beef I buy in the USA and I add the cheese powder mix I also buy in the USA.