Cooking Maasai Food with Maasai People

Today I went with Sarah to a Boma where I previously conducted interviews and we cooked lunch!  We got there and the Maasai people were chilling outside of their tool/kitchen plaster shed.  There was the ‘Baba’ of the Boma, who was carving the handle of a firewood chopping machete (it was a tire, rubber handle), a mama sitting by the entrance to the kitchen with her flock of children, of which there were 4 ranging in age from 2-15ish.  We sat down in the hot sun next to the Baba and Sarah started talking to the family. 

It was 11:00AM and apparently they weren’t going to begin cooking for an hour or so.  But ten minutes later the mama began the process of shredding the 2 heads of cabbage lettuce with her slick and silvery handle-less knife, which reminded me of a razor blade blown up to about 10 times its normal size.

It took her a half an hour to completely shred both heads, during which time I asker her questions like “If I asked you to cook me a balanced diet how would you cook for me,” “what kind of nutrients will you get when you eat this food,” and “do Maasai people normally go blind when they are older?”  The last of these questions I received the response:  “most Maasai men go blind cause they don’t eat vegetables… it is only for women!”  I thought that that was pretty ironic and slightly funny.

After that we went in to the dark kitchen where a fire had presumably been started by one of the children for cooking.  The ‘stove’ was 3 rocks sitting upright in a circle with a space for firewood to be placed in the middle.  A black pot, looking like a small cauldron, could and was easily placed over the center.  Firstly, I was directed to add one onion to this pot over the fire and two regular spoonfuls of market bought fat.  The concoction was crackling and bubbling as we added the four chopped up tomatoes next (small onions, small tomatoes).  After stirring this for a while, while continuously adding small pieces of firewood to the smoky fire, we added the entirety of the cabbage to the mix and stirred.  Every now and then the fire would burn too low and I would have to lightly blow on the wood to start it up again.  The room would always come alive with smoke then, and my eyes would tear up worse than anytime before in my life.  It was so much fun!  We finished cooking the cabbage and the mama lifted the hot black pot up and off the 3 stones with her bare hands.  I thought she was crazy but she wasn’t fazed at all by that.

Next another pot was placed on the 3 firestones that was exactly like the ones we use at RTLC for cooking and boiling water.  We boiled a pot full of water in preparation to make Ugali, which took some time and more smoke filled eyeballs.  Once it was boiling we added 1 whole kilo of unfortified maize flower, which instantly sucked up all the moisture in the pot, creating a sticky starchy substance.  I then used a long stick with a small wooden crescent at one end, called a kipekecho, to stir the substance.  It was tough because it was so sticky and because the pot was moving, threatening to dump its precious contents into the fire.  We took turns stirring for a while.

Now everything was cooked and we were ready to eat!  It was very satisfying to eat with our hands, our right hands.  Sarah and I shared a large Crockpot full of the Ugali and a bowl of cabbage.  It was hot and tasted alright (but mostly tasteless).  We ate it all!  But it wasn’t very filling and I found myself hungry again soon.

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