Food in Dar Part 1

As many of you know, Jon and I like food. We like to grocery shop, cook, bake and eat, both at home and in restaurants. One of the most difficult things for us to adjust to in Kigali was the lack of restaurants and the lack of western groceries. During our time there, we struggled to purchase things that most Americans view as staples: cereal, skim or low fat milk, tomato sauce, cheese, crackers, granola bars, whole wheat bread etc. We also suffered through mediocre restaurant meals that were expensive, more often than not took 3 hours, and frequently ended with only some of the dishes that we'd ordered actually being delivered to our table.

In some ways, this was great. It forced us to realize how many packaged foods we tend to consume, to eat a lot of local fruits and vegetables, and to strengthen our cooking skills. It also forced Jon to like Indian food, since the two best restaurants in Kigali are Indian. This was a big victory for me, since I've always liked it, and have struggled to get Jon to enjoy it.

Given this background, it has been immediately obvious to us that one of many differences between Kigali and Dar is in the food scene. There are two grocery stores near our house (5-10 min walk), and two more about a 20 minute walk away. Together I think these stores have more Western foods than you can find in all of Kigali. This is partly because there is a much larger expat community here in Dar, so there is greater demand for imported and Western food. It is also partly due to geographical differences. Dar is on the water and is a major port, so things can be brought here fairly easily by boat. Kigali is landlocked and relatively far inland, and so everything is trucked there over land, usually across Kenya and Uganda, which is expensive and risky--the roads are bad and you often see overturned trucks by the side of the road that have been completely cleaned out by people from nearby villages.

In our recent trips to local grocery stores, we have found some exciting items, including delicious Irish butter, a variety of cheeses, and cookies that my mom likes:


We also saw the very same kind of cookies that a boy once memorably gave to Becca before a field hockey game:


And....drumroll please....Shreddies and Parmalat skim milk!


Shreddies are a kind of cereal that is a cross between Shredded Wheat and Chex. It is available in Australia (where I first had it), the UK, and Canada, but not in the US. I really like them, so I was VERY excited to find them at the grocery store near our house. Parmalat is hyper-pasteurized milk that actually tastes like milk (unlike some other brands that are available here and in Rwanda--one brand that I tried tastes like cow, rather than milk) and it comes in skim, 1.5% and whole. I have a soft spot for Parmalat in particular because that is what we drank when I was growing up in Hong Kong. My father is still the proud owner of a set of book ends that I made him as a Christmas present when I was in 1st or 2nd grade that are empty Parmalat boxes filled with sand and covered with marbleized paper.

Although Dar has a lot of exciting groceries that are imported from Europe and the US, it also has many East African staples that we're familiar with from Rwanda, including cassava and sorghum flours, powdered milk, and the every popular Pep-Tang, a tomato-ish sauce that resembles synthetic ketchup, and is often regrettably served with french fries (chips), rice and pasta.


And, last but not least, we have everyone's favorite "Fat Spread":