Food Tips

A change to your diet

Even if you are already a diverse eater, a move to Tanzania will probably change your regular diet.
If you come to this beautiful East African country expecting to eat all the same foods as your previous or home country, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Tanzania has a wide variety of foods, but you have to come with an open, experimental mindset. Too often newcomers want to eat all the same foods as back home and find mealtime a difficult or expensive adjustment.

Here is some advice to help you with your new diet in Tanzania:

1. Be creative. Do you love tacos and burritos? Great! Learn to make your own tortillas and the rest of the ingredients are pretty easy to get at local produce markets.
If one main ingredient is missing from your favorite dish, try to make it yourself. Homemade is better, anyway, right?
Since moving to Tanzania I make my own:
– tortillas
– pizza crust
– baba ganoush
– hummus
– salad dressing
– butter
Sure, it’s more work, but it tastes better than store-bought and we don’t eat/make these dishes daily.

2. Start with fresh fruits and veggies.
I grew up in a meat-and-potatoes type of family, so when I started out cooking for myself meat took center stage. This made it difficult to plan meals when I moved to Tanzania: chicken was expensive and it wasn’t as easily to store in the fridge for a week before preparing.
When I shifted my thinking and focused first on fruits and veggies, preparing food came easier.
For example, I have three ripe mangoes, what can I make with these?
I had never planned a meal around a mango before!
Breakfast: mango and yogurt
Lunch: chicken-mango wraps
Dinner: Mango-avocado salsa with rice and black beans.
Much, MUCH easier to plan meals when you start with fresh vegetables and fruits instead of meat or protein.

Next, I looked at vegetables that were plentiful and cheap but came up with limited ideas.
Eggplant – how could I make the cheap but rather boring eggplant palatable? After looking up some new recipes I found Ratatouille, Imam Bayildi and Baba Ganoush were easy and tasty. My whole family loves them and they make incredibly cheap meals or simple side dishes.

Start with the ingredients you have – especially fresh fruits and vegetables – and try out new recipes.

3. Eat Tanzanian specialties. You are living here, so try out the local foods. No offense, Chips Mayai, but I’m not talking about you.
You wouldn’t eat McDonald’s daily would you? (say no, please say no!) The convenient but greasy eggs-and-fries shouldn’t be your go-to lunch, either.

Try:
— Nyama Ndizi (Beef and Bananas)
— Ugali Samaki (Ugali and fish)
— Wali Roasti (Rice and Beef stew)
— Chapati Maharage (flat bread and beans)
— Makande (Tanzanian version of vegan chili)
— Pilau (vegetarian or meat rice dish especially served on Sundays or holidays)

These and more are available at local restaurants and usually set you back all of $1-2 USD for a meal.
After a few tries, you can probably make your own versions of these meals at home.

4. Eat Seasonally.
There is a mango season, a pineapple season, and an avocado season. Harvest-time for corn and beans. These items will be cheap and fresh in-season, so take advantage and change your meal plans accordingly.

5. Don’t be afraid of salad! Worries about bacteria and stomach bugs sometimes intimidate newcomers away from eating raw veggies. A bowl of vinegar and purified drinking water (1:1 ratio) cleans everything for a fresh salad.
I usually leave in the bowl for a few minutes, then shake off excess water, but do not do an additional rinse – I just count the vinegar towards the salad dressing.
Give lettuce, celery and other items that may have a bit more dirt and soil an extra scrub, but peel carrots and cucumbers. Enjoy your salad!

6. If you eat 5 / 7 dinners that are based on fresh, local ingredients, you can splurge a little on exported or expensive comfort items for the other dinners.

Grocery Shopping

There are three types of shops to buy groceries:
Big-Names, Big Prices: these look like supermarkets in America. Big parking lots, shopping carts, targeted advertising and organized shelves. They often have an in-house bakery. You can often pay by debit or credit, sometimes grab a coffee and a snack in the same supermarket. They sell everything from produce, dried bulk items, exported stock and toys.

Please, for the first month avoid shopping at these big supermarkets. Just to see what else is available and to learn the real prices of things. Make it a challenge!
And unless it’s a specialty imported item, don’t buy produce here! It usually isn’t the highest quality and the prices are exorbitant.

Crowded and Busy: These are local supermarkets, usually found near the local produce markets (think Rushda, or Micro Cash-n-Carry, Njiro). They offer A LOT of options for a good price, but you have to wade through crowded shelves and check the expiration date on products yourself. It sounds hectic and can feel overwhelming at first, but I promise, the price difference will be enormous.
Cheese, yogurt, breakfast cereal, pasta, diapers, hygiene items, hair dye, birthday candles and kitchen supplies are all wedged somewhere on those shelves. Don’t see it? Ask for help from an employee, they are sure to know where the item you’re after is hiding.
You usually have to pay in cash, but several shops have a discount after 50,000 or 60,000 shillings and Rushda allows long-term customers to keep a tab.

Be friendly with the staff and soon the busy supermarket won’t feel so claustrophobic. Look for dairy items, including cheese and butter here.

Small, Simple: Neighborhood supermarkets with a limited selection.
You won’t find everything for your week’s groceries at these little shops. But you can probably get milk, cultured ‘mtindi’ (which I use like yogurt in a pinch!), bread, flour and chocolate bars to top you up for a few days.

I buy groceries for our 10-person household every week.
We average $140 USD per week (that’s including our cleaning supplies and ALL the soap my messy kids use, too!).
Food in Tanzania is very affordable, if you buy locally and avoid big supermarkets.

Butcher

If you’re like me and weren’t used to buying meat from a local butcher, it can be intimidating and seem easier to default to buying more expensive from a supermarket.

Just try it! I know the raw meat hanging from a hook attracts flies, and probably doesn’t look appealing. You’re gonna cook it, right? (cook it, cook it really well…)
1. Ask around your neighborhood for a GOOD butcher and fresh meat. “Fresh” and “But-cha” are both understood in Swahili.
2. You can sometimes buy ready-to-eat roasted meat (nyama choma) from the butcher or the butcher’s neighboring shop. Easy-peasy, quick dinner. Get the one wrapped in foil, always tastier!
3. Nyama ya Ng’ombe is BEEF.
4. Kiti Moto is PORK.
5. Kuku is CHICKEN.
6. Meat King is an excellent butcher, a quintessential Arusha expat business – but they are expensive!
7. You may need to go to a supermarket (or Meat King) for ground beef because grinders are not always an option at local butchers.

Fish

I was not a big fish eater until I moved to Tanzania. Now every Monday we have Ugali Samaki, a family favorite.
If you are in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Tanga or Stonetown – you’re good! You don’t need my advice, enjoy your delicious fresh fish and seafood.

For Arusha, our fish is not as fresh as the above-mentioned locations. But it is still really good. Tilapia or Nile perch are my go-to fish.
Every week I buy fish from a Mama in our neighborhood, who chops up an enormous tilapia and sells it in smaller pieces.
1. Buy from a neighbor, it can be just as fresh or fresher than at the market. Also, you’re supporting their business.
2. Tell them you’ve just moved and you plan to buy regularly. They will make sure to sell you the BEST, because you’re not just a one-time visitor.
3. Mondays/Wednesdays or Thursdays usually are the days for fresh fish in Arusha.

I always buy fish from the same two places and because I’m a regular customer, they let me know if the fish isn’t fresh and I change up the menu for fish the next day, instead.

Canned vs Dried

We eat A LOT of beans in our family. It’s also how we keep our food budget down. There are a few items that I buy canned for convenience’s sake, and others I buy in bulk, dried.

Canned:
baked beans (perfect easy Saturday lunch)
white beans/navy beans
fava beans (for a quick and hearty ful medames with eggs)
sweet corn (I have my reasons!)
tomato paste

Dry:
soya beans
black beans (for the kids’ favorite taco nights)
chickpeas
lentils
mung beans
corn kernels (for Makande)

Dried items should be placed in plastic bags and stored in the freezer for one week, if possible. This kills any little bugs or their eggs that will otherwise survive in your containers and eat holes in all your beans.

Eating in Tanzania means fresh ingredients, but can be a bit of a challenge at first. Avoid big supermarkets for the first month to grasp fair grocery prices and center meals around in-season fruits and vegetables for a smooth transition of eating locally.

If you’re moving to Arusha, Tanzania, check out my other posts:

Local Arusha: Grocery Shopping
Family Recipes: Ugali Samaki
Moving to Tanzania Series: 1 – 5-Best Friends; your must-have contacts for moving to Tanzania