Iron Chef Tanzania

or just Christina trying to cook in Tanzania... I’ve always loved cooking, but besides the easier things that you can’t really mess up like spaghetti, nachos, omellettes…. I usually use a recipe. Or at least look at a recipe at one point to see what kind of things go in and in what order and etc. However, measuring cups and spoons, recipes, leisure of ingredients… all a thing of developed countries and not used in Tanzania.

At Mobility Care in Arusha, there is one female employee that has been made the unofficial cook due to her gender. She is one of the few wheelchair technicians out there, and though the men accept her, they still just took for granted that Agnes would be the cook since she was the woman in the group.

Agnes was out on holiday and then out sick, so I offered to cook as a thank you for their warm hospitality! The first day I made French toast, scrambled eggs with tomato, and toast. Simple, but things they had never tried before. The next day I was a little more adventurous and when they asked me for a grocery list (for the market… forget cheese, spices, etc…. it was meat and veggies), I decided to try my hand at stew (I was using a Bunsen burner and a pocket knife…. Wasn’t up for making a main course with side dishes). I asked for tomatoes, green peppers, onions, carrots, beef, and maybe a couple other veggies.. I cut them up into little pieces, Mr. Daniel helped me out, having his first attempt at cooking… a result of our discussion the day before on women’s roles and how they like to get help from time to time to show they’re appreciated. I stewed the veggies and meat for several hours and seasoned to taste with salt and pepper. Then I cooked the pasta in the stew and they loved it!

A few days later I cooked dinner (fried rice which taste not like fried rice because I had to cook the rice on the stove and it wasn’t day-old rice like it should have been… but it worked!) for Tish and her bf but the blades are dull and the cooking ware is very basic so my hands got a bit torn up, many bandaids – they loved the food though!