Kenyan food

By Janelle Esposito

As we watched the Navajo movie, I thought back on my time in Kenya this past summer. The connection between the Navajo (as agriculturalists) and their food is something not reflected in current American society. We do not know our food, no relationship is established. But like food we are earth. As the Navajo said, the corn depends on us and we depend on the corn.

Until I went to Kenya this past summer, I felt connected to food. Unlike most college students, whenever I can afford time, I cook my own food. I hate using pre-made products and hating the chemicals we daily consume, I buy most of my food organic. Until I had to give it up to go to Kenya (where I had to accept all food out of hospitality) I was a vegetarian because I was outraged by the American meat industry. Being from an Italian family of meat-eaters, my time as a vegetarian was very much a fast from the foods I had previously enjoyed so much.

For three weeks, my ministry partner and I stayed with Leah, a very traditional Kikuyu woman in Nairobi. Even though she lives in a metropolitan city, Leah still makes every attempt to stay connected with the food she ate. Rice grows at her rural home, which she collects every time she goes home. She then brings it back and sells it to her friends and neighbors at a reasonable price. Each time she buys fruits, vegetables, goat or chicken, she visits the same markets. There they are bought from local farmers who were intimately involved with their animals and their gardens. Even though she doesn't have a relationship with these foods, she does have a relationship with these farmers as she consistently goes back to them and carries on in conversation. Once I witnessed someone come to her house to buy rice. She ended up staying over an hour for tea.

When Leah asked me if I could cook, I was enthusiastic. But then she asked me what I cooked with and I was shamed to tell her what it was- canned beans and diced tomatoes, frozen vegetables, and the number of pre-made foods I had far exceeded what I originally thought. Even worse, the fresh foods I did buy were bought in grocery stores which they are not local to. Bananas obviously are not grown in Virginia. They are frozen and then shipped over. One time, she asked me if I ate rice. I told her I did and she proceeded to ask where it was grown in America. I was stumped! At the moment, I could not even recall if it was grown in America or not. That is our relationship with most foods we have here- we don't know where they are grown or raised- we just take it for granted that they sit nicely on our corporate grocery store shelves.

Also, the food I consumed in Kenya was not processed or had any additive chemicals, and it was not fried in grease. With our huge meals, I thought I would gain a lot of weight, but I didn't due to the healthiness of the foods. In between meal time, I was rarely hungry to snack.
Kenyan food tend to be bland, because they rely more on nutritonal value than superfluous flavor. My eyes opened up a lot as I learned about food in Kenya.