Experience Uganda Culture From Home

24 June 2020

Experience Uganda Culture — Food, Music and Literature — in The Comfort of Your Own Home

You may have postponed or canceled your all-inclusive Uganda safari due to the cultural changes forced onto the world by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t experience Uganda culture — food, music, and literature — in the comfort of your cozy living room.

As we take a break from leisure travel, pray for the situation to settle down, and wait for International travel to ease into the new normal, we believe you can still experience Uganda’s raw cultures wherever you are with a bit of guidance from the Nkuringo Safaris team.

It will also help you prepare your mind for what you may find on your postponed Africa safari journey because Uganda shares a considerable chunk of lifestyle with most East and Central African cultures. So no matter where you’re headed for your next African vacation, this may serve you just right.

Uganda is best known for its hospitality, and traditionally when the visitor is invited into a home, after the formal greetings, the family members will immediately rush into the kitchen to make a meal that will cement their relationship with the new guest. It’s commonly said, “FOOD IS THE RELATIONSHIP WE HOLD.”

Where two or three are gathered in Uganda, you’ll always find a plate of food.

The Food—Ugandan cuisine

Ugandan cuisine draws mainly on the Continent’s cooking, English, Arabic, Asian, and Indian influence. It uses much of local produce like plantains, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, and cassava. Experience Uganda culture through your taste buds. Traditional Ugandan meals include Posho ( Ugali – solidified maize meal porridge) served with a stew of groundnuts, beans, chicken, or meat such as goat, mutton, and fish from Lake Victoria.

Uganda Cultures, Vegetable Market in Uganda — Typical Vegetable Market in Uganda

A lot of vegetables such as carrots, cabbages, spinach, local greens like ‘dodo’ and ‘nakati’ make it on the plate when enjoying a local meal anywhere in Uganda.

Here are some recipes that you can try at home to make a Ugandan meal in your kitchen’s comfort. You can then plan a trip to Uganda to compare notes.

Ugandan Dishes (with Recipes) You Can Cook Yourself

Chapati

If you’ve eaten Indian Roti, Naan, and Paratha, then you must taste Chapati. Chapati is more like Roti, a flatbread that originated in India and is made with ground wholewheat flour. It is a staple in most parts of India and Pakistan and is consumed in many other countries. In Uganda, it is made traditionally on a hot pan with little oil to prevent it from sticking to the pan and take lesser time and effort to cook compared to bread. Chapati recipe includes the following:

Chapati Ingredients

250 ml of warm water
500g baking flour
½ teaspoon salt
100ml cooking oil or fat

How to make Chapati

Sieve the flour and hold back 150g.
Put the flour in a bowl, add salt and water and mix to a non–stick but soft dough. Knead lightly. Cut out between five or seven even pieces and roll into balls.
Heat the frying pan. Meanwhile, roll out one of the balls to a thin round ball.
Put about one tablespoon of oil in the pan, place the chapati on the pan, cook one side till brown, and then turn the other side, adding more oil if the pan is dry.
Repeat the process for all the other balls.

Lovely to have with Stew. (To add more flavor, you may choose to add about 200g steamed mashed carrots or pumpkin to the dough when kneading)

Don’t forget to steam some vegetables for the side.

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Meat Stew ( beef, lamb, chicken etc.)

Beef Stew Ugandan cuisine and cultures — Ugandan Beef and Vegetable Stew Dish

Ingredients

1/2kg meat
2 onions
3 tomatoes
2-3 tablespoon of oil ( vegetable oil is mainly used in Uganda)
2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of curry powder
3 carrots
2 green peppers
1 eggplant ( optional)

How to make meat stew

Cut the meat into small pieces, chop the onions, scald the tomatoes and cut them into pieces. Chop the vegetables (carrots, green pepper) optional eggplant.
Heat the oil and add onions till they are golden brown.
Add the tomatoes, add your spices salt and curry powder and cook till well done.
Put the meat in the pan and cook till meat is almost brown.
Then add vegetables, add warm water and bring to boil in a covered pan. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-60mins till the meat is tender.
This can be accompanied with the chapati.

This recipe works for all stews – try also the Fish Stew ( this can be whole fish or Tilapia or Nile Perch fillet )

Steamed Plantain (locally called Gonja)

Use very ripe fingers!

Clean off the dust and place in a pan with water and steam for 45mins.
Allow 2 fingers per person but since it can be eaten cold many can be cooked and the leftover kept in a cool place.
To serve; peel and cut into desired pieces – great for a side dish and also for breakfast.

Steamed Matooke (Green Banana)

Of course, you will not wholly experience Uganda Culture and food without tasting the most famous local dish, matooke. No meal in Uganda would be complete without matooke. The Baganda, so taken up with that the word emere (food being the transliteration) means matooke. To be invited to somebody’s home in Buganda or western Uganda and be served pasta, rice, and Irish as a staple is downright frowned upon and considered near unorthodox.

Ingredients:

30 to 40 fingers of mature but not ripe matooke
Several banana leaves and stalks
Enough water

How to make matooke

Peel matooke and wash. Prepare the banana leaves as indicated in the story.
Have ready a suitable saucepan for steaming and placing the matooke in the leaf, and adding enough water. Before placing the matooke in the saucepan, place a couple of banana stalks (ebikolokomba) crosswise in the saucepan. Add the matooke.
Ensure that the matooke is neatly arranged, wrap it with the banana leaves, and secure it with fibers or ebyai. One by one, tuck the banana leaves on top of the other until you are satisfied that they fit snugly. If possible, have a used banana leaf that has been seasoned from cooking matooke, and this should be tucked in at the top of the layer of banana leaves.
A gas burner or electric cooker is fine, though because the matooke is messy, an outdoor kitchen is advisable and uses a sigiri.
When you first set the matooke on fire or cooking range, give it one hour or so of high heat so that it boils thoroughly. After this process, reduce the heat and always make sure that the matooke has enough water and that at all times, it is cooking. The method of cooking matooke is via steaming. Allow a minimum of two hours of cooking. The longer, the better.
When the banana leaves have turned brown, this indicates that the matooke is ready to be mashed. Safely remove it from the fire and set it aside.
At this juncture, you will need to have some used banana leaves where you can place the wrapped banana and begin mashing. It helps if you have another saucepan (a small plastic bowl can be used) with cold water, and you are now ready to unravel the matooke and mash it using the old banana leaf. Carefully uncover the matooke to avoid the steam setting the banana leaves aside. Cut one of the leaves into two and fold the other half into three and the folded leaf gently. Gingerly press the matooke until it is mashed to the consistency of mashed potatoes.
Wrap the mashed matooke in banana leaves and return to the saucepan adding more water, making sure that the water does not touch the matooke. Use a wooden spoon (mulao) to pour the water to the bottom of the saucepan.
Return the matooke on the range or sigiri and bring it to boil before reducing the heat and allow it to simmer for at least another hour gently. Without adequate heat, you will get poor and dismal results. Serve piping hot, preferably in a Kibo wrapped in banana leaves.

Uganda culture food, Posho (Maize bread or Ugali in Swahili)

Posho (Maize meal or Ugali in Swahili)

Posho is a semi-hard cornmeal porridge that is the traditional basic dish in most Uganda cultures and is traditionally served with meat, fish, or vegetable stews. It is a similar dish as Ugali in Tanzania, Shima in Mozambique, Pap in South Africa, and Namibia. To eat Posho, pull off a small ball of mush with one’s fingers and use it to scoop up stews.

Ingredients

750g maize flour
5 liters water

How to make Maize bread

Bring water to boil in a thick pan
Sieve the flour, which should be very fine.
Add a quarter of the flour. Using a wooden spoon, stir briskly to avoid lumps. If still light and porridge-like, add about a tablespoon at a flour mill, mixing till the flour is absorbed.
Cook until the mixture is quite thick but not stiff.
Reduce heat to low and cook the bread for 10-15minutes turning it all the time to avoid burning at the bottom and to ensure even cooking, then cover the pan, the bread is now ready to serve; turn the pan on a plate to remove the bread from the pan, slice in neat squares to serve with your stew.

Uganda food, A dish of Boiled Rice, Matooke, Pumpkin and G-nute Sauce — A dish of Boiled Rice, Matooke, Pumpkin and G-nute Sauce | @Monitor.co.ug

G-nut Sauce (Groundnut Sauce)

Ingredients

250g groundnut
1 tomato
1 onion
1 liter of water
Salt

How to make groundnut sauce

Pound/Grind the shelled dry groundnuts into a powder.
Cut onions and tomatoes.
Boil half the water with the onion and tomatoes.
Blend the groundnut powder with a little warm water and add to the boiling water.
Keep stirring to avoid lumps and sauce from boiling over. When it has boiled steadily for 5 mins, reduce the heat and stir occasionally.
Cook for 30 mins. Add the salt and correct the consistency using warm water.
Let it boil for another 5 mins. Serve with steamed green bananas or Posho.

Uganda Music and Dance

Uganda Music and Food Culture — Uganda Music and Food, the perfect mix. | @Freepik

Music is the main ingredient of experiencing Uganda Culture is the soulful sounds of Uganda music and dance. As you enjoy one of the homemade Ugandan meals, music and dance are essential for our socializing. Uganda is made up of over 60 tribes. Each tribe has unique music, from the traditional instrument types and dance styles.

In most cases, we will identify a tribe from its dance as much as the language they speak, and each tribe in Uganda treasured their dances as they were part of their identity.

While on safari in Uganda, you may have the chance to witness traditional Ugandan music by the Ndere Troupe, a great way to end an Africa safari. Uganda is well known in East Africa for its nightlife; Kampala city doesn’t go to sleep – each bar on almost every street is full of revelers.

Popular Ugandan cultural dances

Ekitaguriro: This dance is by the Banyankore from western Uganda, demonstrating their love for cattle.

Ekizino: This dance performed by the Bakiga from Kigezi, popularly known as a ‘court dance,’ is performed when the king will settle disputes in the kingdom.

Bakisimba, Muwogola, and Nankasa: These are Baganda dances originated from the king’s palace in central Uganda. The Kiganda dance is very popular and is performed whenever Kabaka is going to give a speech to his people.

Mwaga: Also called the Imbalu dance, performed by the Bagishu found in the Mt. Elgon area of Uganda celebrating the coming-of-age circumcision season.

Akebe: This courtship dance is performed by the Iteso from the East. Its music is softly played on melodic instruments.

Runyege and Entongoro: This is both ceremonial and cultural dance by the Batooro from the west. It is mainly performed by the youth when it’s time to choose their partners.

Adungu: This dance is performed to melodies of the harp-like Adungu, by the Alur found in the West Nile region. The dance requires one to jump around in pattern to impress a potential mate.

Bwola: This circular dance that represents the fence of the kingdom is performed by older men and women of the Acholi people in the North.

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Top Uganda Songs To Download for A Pure Africa Safari Soul

Imagine driving down the long winding roads of Uganda’s countryside. Emerald green everywhere you look outside your window. Birds of all colors fly in the distant white clouds. Lite laughs from women by the roadside carrying baskets of food on their heads. Children play in simple compounds of homes by the roadside. Animals’ heads buried in the short savanna grass-eating away the African growth. And the fresh-cool African wind blows over your city-pale face. These beautiful songs play out both your ears. Ahhh, heaven!

This Uganda music playlist will bring out the African soul in you. Play on repeat!

Direct Play: Soundcloud Playlist.

Documentaries and Movies About Uganda

After you dance your way around the kitchen, enjoying Ugandan culture music through your ears, you can watch some documentaries about Uganda or movies that have featured Uganda from the comfort of your sofa with the whole family.

Uganda is a land of beauty. When Churchill first visited Uganda, he was stunned by this country’s endless beauty and called Uganda “The Pearl of Africa.” Uganda has dramatically transformed from war times as seen in the ‘Last King of Scotland ‘to a very peaceful country and now mostly known for its hospitality.

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Movies like “Queen of Katwe” a life-changing story of a young ghetto-slum girl who learns the game of chess and becomes a top player, and sees an opportunity to escape from a life of poverty. This movie accurately showcases Uganda’s Culture, music, people, and energy of an ordinary person in Uganda. Watch it.

Ugandans are very creative. You will experience Uganda culture from some clips on local filming projects in the slums of Kampala; Wakaliwood produces regional action movies – giving Jackie Chan & Tom Cruise a run for their money.

kids walking in Uganda — ©Karen Gowen Photography 2019

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Jackie Sato

Jackie is a hospitality and tourism professional with a passion for writing. An event planner by day and a writer by night. She keeps up with the trends by writing research-based content on tourism, business, careers and more.