Ugandan fast food - can you stomach it?!

If you are on the move and feel hungry, an easy snack is to buy a hardboiled egg and add some salt. These eggs are - on line with meat sticks, fried grashoppers and white ants (when in season), deep fried cassava and sweet potatoes, roasted mealies, samosa, the cake-like mandazis and fruit (for dessert?) - the most frequent snacks all through Uganda.

Some wazungu see it as a problem that the food comes without any valuable information of how long ago it was produced and then kept in 30 degrees heat. Some question the fact that a lot of merchants stick to the rule that if the food is not sold today, why not try to sell it the day or the day after? You would hear me say that it is up to you and your stomach. People also get severe stomach infections from eating in expensive restaurants in Kampala.

I have always travelled the Balkans and Africa with the slightly naïve approach that occasional roadside food might toughen me up, harden my immune system, and make me blend in. I have even confused my menthal health with the one of my stomach, having an idea that if my brain could cope wiht the harshness of Africa, so could my stomach. But after having suffered from various infections, and the subsequent yeast infections caused by the antibiotics, I began using both parts of my brain, slowly admitting that maybe I shouldn't take it as a test of how good I am at making it in Africa...

I am longing for dansk smørrebrød!

Comments

[Marie Javins]

"People also get severe stomach infections from eating in expensive restaurants in Kampala."

I can vouch for that! Worst sickness of my life, and probably contributed to serious health issues a month later...