When I landed in the United States earlier this year, I was not familiar with the kind of food Americans eat. I learned – fast. I had no alternatives. When I tried to search for Kenyan restaurants on the Internet, I found none. I did not know any Kenyans here either. 

One day, I was craving a popular Kenyan dish, Ugali. I began to despair, wondering if I would have to wait to go back to Kenya before I ate Ugali again. I decided to try to make it myself. 

My journey to cook Kenyan food in the United States was not an easy one. There isn’t a Kenya-town anywhere here. In Kenya, I would find Ugali everywhere. It is a basic dish that is that is cooked by mixing corn flour with boiled water. It is served with vegetables. But the key is in finding the right ingredients. For example, the yellow corn flour that’s so easily available in all American grocery stores won’t work in this recipe. It has to be white.

The first food store I visited was Trader Joe’s. I walked around reading the labels on all the items, with a hope that I would find some familiar Kenyan groceries. I didn't. But my shopping was not a total failure since I found vegetables like spinach and kale. I smiled with relief because those are the vegetables that are eaten with Ugali. Usually, we cut the vegetables and mix them with beef.

I decided I needed to find a Kenyan grocery store. While visiting the flea market at Ashby, I met Gerald Gichuki, a Kenyan. I’m lucky, I thought to myself, to finally meet a Kenyan. The first thing I asked him was - where did he buy his Kenyan ingredients?

I was astonished by his response. Gichuki said that he ate Kenyan food at home – daily! I could not believe it. I was very happy when he was kind enough to write for me the names of the stores where one can get Kenyan groceries.  I learned that if I asked, I could find white corn flour at places like Lucky and Safeway. 

I came home smiling only to realize that I didn’t have the right cooking spoon. My craving for Ugali drove me to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy a large cooking spoon - or what Kenyans call a cooking stick. I had the flour, the vegetables – and even my stick.

I cooked and invited my friends and was very happy to share with them our local food. It was a celebration of my newfound freedom to make Ugali anytime I felt like it. It is, after all, my favorite food.



Recipe for Ugali

4 to 6 servings

    * Water -- 4 cups
    * White cornmeal, finely ground -- 2 cups

Method

   1. Bring the water to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the cornmeal slowly, letting it fall though the fingers of your hand.
   2. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue stirring regularly, smashing any lumps with a spoon, until the mush pulls away from the sides of the pot and becomes very thick, cook about 10 minutes.
   3. Form into a ball and place the Ugali into a large serving bowl.

    * Ugali is usually served as an accompaniment to meat or vegetable stews, greens or soured milk. To eat Ugali, pull off a small ball of mush with your fingers. Form an indentation with your thumb, and use it to scoop up accompanying stews and other dishes. Or you can form larger balls with your hands or an ice cream scoop, place them in individual serving bowls and spoon stew around them.