SPILL THE BEANS
Chef Kiran Jethwa will explore unusual ingredients from Kenya in a forthcoming TV series. He speaks to Divya Kaushik about the native food of different communities
How many people have you come across who have told you that they are going on a food trail to Kenya? We are sure none. We all know Kenya for different things, wildlife being a common one, but cuisine from Kenya remains to be a yet-to-be-explored treasure. So chef Kiran Jethwa is here to take us on an interesting journey to Kenya. This journey will not just be about food, rather it will be about wealth of ingredients that can be discovered in the landscape. In the forthcoming culinary travel series, Tales from the Bush Larder on Fox Life, the Kenyan chef will explore unusual ingredients that the country is rich in — Nile perch from Lake Turkana, African wild honey and wild fowl, Swahili prawns, boran beef, dorobo lamb, palm wine and mud crabs from the Northern Coast to name a few.
Through the show Kiran travels across the wild Kenyan countryside to find interesting ingredients and meets the vibrant people responsible for procuring them. In one of the episodes, Kiran joins a local fisherman to learn how to fish. Using this he then cooks an interesting dish for his new friends. “Kenya is one of the best place to get a variety of seafood. There is such a vast variety of ingredients that can be found there and most people in the world don’t know about it. So this show will be an attempt to explore the richness and diversity of Kenya. I have had a greater appreciation of our local farmers and fishermen and what they have to do to make us eat,” says Kiran, the owner of Nairobi’s premier seafood restaurant, Seven Seafood and Grill. His restaurant specialises in seafood since “we get an amazing variety there. I use most Indian spices in my restaurants, everything from cumin to mustard seeds.”
The chef says that if one is touring Kenya, there are some food that one must try. “There is no particular dish that represents all of Kenya. Different communities have their own native food. Staples are maize and other cereals depending on the region, including millet and sorghum eaten with various meats and vegetables. The most popular food eaten in Kenya are ugali, sukuma wiki andnyama choma. Sukuma wiki is a Swahili phrase which literally means ‘to push the week.’ It is a simple dish made with greens similar to kale or collards that can also be made with cassava leaves, sweet potato leaves or pumpkin leaves. Its Swahili name comes from the fact that it is typically eaten to ‘get through the week’ or ‘stretch the week.’ Nyama choma is grilled meat — usually goat or sheep. It is grilled over an open fire. It is usually eaten with ugali and kachumbari,” says Kiran.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/vivacity/spill-the-beans.html
