Milk and Cookies?

Continuing with the Frequently Asked Questions from my latest newsletter, here's another one...

What do you eat in Tanzania?
It's actually pretty close to what I'd eat in America with some slight alterations.

The fruits are tropical: apples and grapes are expensive and rare, cranberries and blueberries virtually nonexistent, but mangoes, pineapple, papaya, guava are cheap and plentiful. These I'd buy at our local fruit and vegetable duka. (Swahili for store/shop)

For meat, I'd usually eat chicken or ground beef, which is so lean there's almost no need to drain the grease! Large portions of meat are expensive and not commonly used in recipes. Although you can buy meat from a local butcher, it's not the safest since it probably hasn't been refrigerated. I'd get it from Shop-Rite, a South African grocery store chain, or another grocery store.

Pasta is readily available as are different varieties of rice. There is a great bakery which makes several types of loaves, rolls and flat breads.

Cooking is a little different, too. Gas ovens and stoves are the most common and almost nothing comes frozen or prepared. Everything is from scratch.

There are several wonderful restaurants in Dar also. Anghiti's, an Indian restaurant, is my favorite! Addis in Dar offers delicious Ethiopian food. Hot Box has great burgers...though I honestly couldn't tell you what was in or on them and we have a theory that their tastiness is a direct correlation to the amount of time you've been in Dar... The only American restaurant is Subway and it is remarkably like Subways in the US except they serve no pork products. There's also a great take-away 'fast food' Portuguese chicken place, Barcelos.

Of course, Tanzanian food is common and delicious, too.... more about that in another post...

Food I missed most: MILK!! Cold, creamy, delicious, need-to-be-refrigerated milk!