Murima folks aren’t known for their culinary prowess. We are the national laughing stock in matters food. Our tribal dish-mashakura-is so derided that it’s a stale joke in social circles.
What is even more puzzling are the names we give to our foods-local or exotic. The other day, I passed by our mama mboga, looking for a fruit to slake my thirst. She handed me what looked like tangerines, but two times sweeter and wetter. Okay, I meant juicer but you all get the point.
As I paid her, she charged me double, saying that those fruits were from a neighbouring country. Since when did we start importing tangerines, I asked her. Anko, these are Big C’s, she whispered back. Smaller but sweeter. We argued for some minutes as I explained to her that there is no fruit called Big C. Latter, I learnt that the correct word was ‘pixie.’ She still calls them ‘Big C’ though.
The avocado, the fruit that South Americans refer to as ‘the fruit of love’ is another victim of our not so polite food names. Back in the day, before the world learnt how to whip a ‘guacamole’, the avocado was a much hated fruit in the village. No grown man would be seen eating it, its major consumers being unwashed boys and mangy mongrels. The proper name for the fruit then was ‘maguna ngui’-the fruit that benefits the dogs. This unsavoury moniker has stuck for men of my generation.
Back in the day, a new bean was introduced in the market-I dunno from where. It was small and reddish-and Kikuyus loved it since it made very colourful gathufu or gravy. Market women tried to get a name for it in vain. Then they remembered that Mumbi had nine full daughters and one of them was called Wairimu. So why struggle with a single name when we have such a large pool to pick from? The bean variety was christened ‘Wairimu’-and the name stuck. Urban girls have appropriated this ‘Wairimu’ name to denote a part of female anatomy but since I am a junior elder, I won’t delve into that.
In the early 2000’s, a legume that Murima folks hadn’t seen landed in the shops. We had no name for it, but we loved its taste. It had this habit of splitting into two, ending up as two flat halves that somehow resembled pubic lice. The problem of the name for the lentil had been solved-it was christened ‘kamande’, the Kikuyu name for pubic lice. But don’t let the unfortunate branding fool you-kamande is still a popular legume amongst our people.
The last food item with a hilarious name is the omasum of a goat that is served by elders after a meat feast. The recipe for making it is a guarded secret, though I can disclose to you some of the ingredients-fatty pieces of meat and blood. This high table delicacy is served at the tail end of a party and is called ‘thenga twarie’ which literally means ‘move away so that we can talk’.
It’s a miracle that up to now, this culinary gem hasn’t been appropriated by multinationals like KFC, baptized a fancy name and sold for top dollar.