Former Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Information and Communications and now University of Nairobi professor Bitange Ndemo is an intellectual giant. He is also a peerless writer whose works always leaves me pensive. He recently wrote a fantastic article on how innovation and creativity should be used to create of employment for youth.
The good professor was doing well up until he suggested we standardize and commercialize production of common traditional foods. He further scandalized his brilliant idea by suggesting we come up with a machine for making ugali, nyama choma, chapati, mukimo, mursik, among others. Good lord! Look, Ndemo, you can play with all the other foods, for all I care. But, for crying out loud, don’t you dare come up with a machine for making ugali, please. Prof, whatever you do, please, please, don’t go there! I mean, no self-respecting Kenyan eats canned githeri or meat. They rot on supermarket shelves. Dude, what makes you think we are about to change our minds and start eating canned ugali? Over my dead body!
If some busybody masquerading as an engineer ever try come up with that sort of machine, real women (of course, I’m not talking about these nail-polishing and stiletto-wearing Nairobi girls who hate cooking, and won’t hang around the kitchen even if you imposed on them a court order) of this great nation will be up in arms. To many, such technology would not only disenfranchise, but also reduce their utility in homes. Some will feel useless. However tasking some household chores may be, women enjoy doing them. However odious cooking — especially complicated meals like ugali — may be, most women enjoy going through the motions; inhaling volumes of smoke, stocking fire, sweating through the process and all.
Oh yes, I know what I’m talking about. I recall attending a wedding in my rural home. The groom, a city resident, hired the so-called outside catering services. Big mistake. You should have seen how angry local women were. They screamed blue murder. “He is such an idiot! Just because he is well-educated, he thinks we are dirty and will contaminate his food with germs,” hissed one, puffed up with fury like a puff adder just about to strike. “He is a very foolish man, he thinks we will steal his meat,” scoffed another, visibly angry. My friend, it was a scandal.
Cooking is not only an art, but also a talent and, mostly, a ticket to marriage. Most women spend the better part of their childhood honing this skill. Then all of a sudden a man brings a gizmo to take over? Forget it! I bet you, they won’t, pardon the pun, take it lying down. Currently, the quality of, say, ugali partly depends on the mood of the woman cooking it. But as much as a machine will standardize the recipe, the cooking process and shorten the cooking time, it is an idea whose time is yet to come.
Again, if this was to happen, it will bring in commercialization of ugali and before we know it, this national delicacy will be international. And before you could wail “mwizi”, some cunning mzungu will have patented the damn thing. And soon, ugali will be all over supermarkets in the US and UK, with others even exporting it to us! Remember what they did to our kiondo?
Look, ugali is uniquely Kenyan. Only Kenyan women know how to balance the water and flour in the right ratios and expertly regulate the fire to cook it to perfection. Try asking a foreigner, like I did with some African-American pal of mine, to cook it and you will regret. The lady cooked some pathetic ballast-like stuff that kept shattering into debris each time I dug in and tried to knead it into a bolus. I don’t know why Ndemo wants this vital aspect of our culture dead. Just close your eyes and imagine the joke of machine-made ugali, chapatis, nyama choma or mursik on supermarket shelves. Will they have that authentic taste?
So, my friend Ndemo, your idea will open a can of warms and it won’t end well. For Christ’s sake, just leave those traditional foods alone. But if you insist, spare ugali.
