Kenyan cuisine is concentrated around hearty stews, root vegetable and corn dishes, game meat including warthog – which may be a difficult dish to digest if you have seen The Lion King, fresh seafood along the coast, and much more. Get ready for the taste bud adventure of a lifetime on your tours in Kenya – we’ll take the opportunity now to lay down the challenge of trying bull’s testicles. Allow us to advise some homemade Pombe (bush beer) to help the testicles go down.
National Dish:
Ugali (cornmeal porridge/dough)
Staples:
Stews: Goat, Lamb, Chicken, Beef, Vegetable, Sukuma Wiki (green kale)
Maize, Millet and Sorghum
Tubers: Ngwaci (sweet potatoes), ndũma (taro root), ikwa (yams), and mianga (cassava), beans
Githeri maize and beans
Irio green peas and mashed potatoes
Meat/Seafood:
Nyama Choma (roasted meat on wooden board)
Game Meat: Giraffe, zebra, impala, warthog crocodile, ostrich, bulls testicles (!)
Kenchic chicken
Mutura goats blood sausages
Coastal fresh seafood: crab, lobster, oysters and kingfish
Condiments:
Kachumbari tomato and onion relish
Snacks:
Samosas (feta and coriander), Chapattis
Mishkaki kebabs
Corncobs
Mandaazi deep-fried dough cakes
Egg-bread
Cassava chips, roasted termites
Bajias
Fruit:
Coconuts, avocadoes, mangoes, cape gooseberries, custard apples, passionfruit
Beverages:
Chai tea
Exported Kenya coffee (not much locally!)
Stoney Tangawizi ginger beer
Tiger Milk
Beer:
Tusker Lager, Tusker Malt, White Cap
Homemade Pombe (bush beer)
Spirits:
Kenya Cane white rum
Kenya Gold (coffee-flavoured liqueur)
Dawa “medicine” cocktail (vodka, white rum, honey and lime juice)
Courtney Gahan is a serial expat, traveller and freelance writer who has bartered with Moroccan marketeers, seen the sun rise at Angkor Wat and elbowed her way through crowds on NYE in NYC
