THE ONE ABOUT BUGANDA VS KIGEZI FOOD CULTURE

When I started living in Buganda, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, food-wise.

While growing up, the norm was cooking beans in a big saucepan and when they were ready, we would add greens, then sweet potatoes on top and finally pumpkins. We would eat to our satisfaction. At the end of the meal, my mum would say that if anyone wasn’t full, there was an option of preparing maize porridge. There was also a mug of sorghum porridge to be drunk.

One of my first observations when I moved to Kampala was how Baganda eat their food in small quantities. I would watch in horror while visiting my Baganda friends as they’d comfortably peel 6 fingers of matooke, and then cook them in a village of banana leaves. At serving time, they’d slice about one spoonful onto your plate. Then they’d add a bit of pilau and a few other foods. When it comes to food, they care so much about quality and presentation.

Another major shock happened after getting married among the Baganda. When I went to visit my lovely mother-in-law, she asked that they bring me tea. I waited in anticipation and when they brought a big flask and a tin of tea leaves, I excitedly jumped to pour into my cup. Alas, plain water poured out instead! I gently put the flask lid back on and patiently waited for any other flask or kettle of milk that would follow from the kitchen.

After 30 minutes of waiting in vain, I leaned back and quietly asked my husband Jose if there was milk that would accompany the black tea that had been delivered. He was confused because as far as he knew, that was all the tea there was. It’s not that I had never taken black tea, it’s just that where I come from, it is an abomination to serve black tea to visitors. I have never understood why, but someone would rather sell their blood and prepare milk tea than serve black tea, yet the latter is a such delicacy in Buganda that my friend Bob salivates every time he is serving it.

Being from a culture of extravagant meal portions and assimilating into a culture of eating five grains of rice per serving (okay, I’m exaggerating but you get the picture) changed my life. After my first year of campus, I went back home having lost about 10kg. My grandmother looked at me and cried- real tears. She started lamenting, asking if there was food in Kampala. She told me that I no longer looked like a Mukiga. A real Mukiga, she said, should have a big stomach and a corresponding bum. It is after she had said this that I started wondering if I had missed out on being a model because of my people’s way of eating.

It’s always a beautiful thing to encounter and learn about the norms of different cultures. Cultural diversity is God-ordained after all. Acts 17: 26 says, “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”