This discovery would later lead to the Leakys and "Lucy" and Tanzania would be considered the very origin of humankind.
Fun Fact: Lucy was not discovered by Louis Leaky...but his wife, Mary. Louis had been dead for some time, by then.
Lucy's pelvic structure would confirm she walked upright and fashioned crude tools.
Fossilized human footprints would also be found in this Tanzanian Gorge.
A museum stands where humanity began.
So we are all essentially Tanzanian...just removed several millions of generations.
Fast forward 250 million years and now we have cars and societies and skyscrapers...also Traditional Tanzanian Brew.
Yes...we are now beer makers.
The Traditional Tanzanian Beer...Mbege.
Still made of basically 3 ingredients.
Water, bananas, and millet. (yes...parakeet food...who knew...)
After hearing about Mbege...and although I do not care for beer...I HAD to start my own brewing, you know.
Apparently the addition of boiled millet takes the place of hops, and more importantly, keeps this from being banana wine.
The bananas are chopped into medium chunks and boiled with the millet in several cups of water.
TIP: Little balls of millet are messy. They roll everywhere. Pour it in a bowl first. Trust me on this.
When this mixture cools one of the skins of the banana is dipped in the porridge for a few minutes to harvest the wild yeast on its surface. Then removed and discarded.
The bananas have plenty of natural sugar in them.
The mush and water is then transferred to a glass container and loosely covered to ferment for 7 days.
When strained...the resulting amber liquid is Mbege.
Since both the bananas and the millet I used were less that $3 USD together this may be the cheapest beer ever...which may have been the point.
While the banana and millet is boiling it smells remarkably wonderful!
Now that it has been transferred to ferment in a quart jar...well, it resembles something a parakeet might have thrown up.
Just saying.
Another omnipresent street food you will find here is Ungali.
See the white mass that looks a lot like mashed potatoes or grits.
That is Ungali.
Traditionally made of white cornmeal, it is cooked in boiling salted water.
Because I do not have white cornmeal on hand, I will be using yellow.
I believe the Italians have a similar side-dish they call Polenta used for much the same reason.
It does not have a lot of flavor on its own...but when used to scoop/accompany stews and sauces it leaves the diner feeling full.
(...it is a cheap easy filler...)
The recipe is simple...water ratio is 2 to one and a sprinkle of salt.
Bring water to a boil and add cornmeal. Turn off heat and stir until firm. Cover to steam for 10 minutes.
It smells a little like hot popcorn...I could see butter being a nice accompaniment for this.
(...tasty...but oh so sticky...)
Another street food you will see a lot of is Mishkaki...basically meat on a stick with vegetables. Usually sweet potatoes, onions or peppers.
In The States they are generally known as kebabs.
They are made with chicken, beef or pork.
Threaded on wooden skewers and grilled until done...occasionally basted with various sauces. These smell heavenly when grilling and are perfect with the Ungali...especially when you scoop up a bit of the sauce with it.
Traditional Tanzanian Meal
It sounds more exotic than it is...being basically an egg omelette with fries (chips) tossed in.
Add ins include peppers and onions...and ketchup is used on it.
We will leave our Mbege brewing and check on it in 7 days...
Next time Kilimanjaro!
