‘Omena’ by any other name would smell same

By Ted Malanda

NAIROBI, KENYA: I had dinner at this fancy Italian restaurant on Ngong’ Road last Saturday. They served Termitoidae as a starter, but I chose to pass because it didn’t look crispy enough for my tastes.

But the chef made up for his tardiness when the main course came. The Zea mays was baked to perfection — steaming hot and bland, but with that rich organic flavour. It was served with Rostronobela argentia fried in coconut oil and peppered with Bombay chilies. It had this tangy and crunchy taste that was absolutely indescribable.

And to complete the meal was a side dish filled to the brim with a generous helping of steamed Brassica oleracea, tender and sweet…

Okay, let’s cut the bulls**t. I haven’t been to an Italian restaurant in years. In fact, my last visit was 2009 when I asked for Tusker moto and the waiter put the darn beer in a microwave and delivered it tepid.

Bullet proof pyjamas

Another reason I never returned is I discovered that restaurant was the favourite hideout of a senior politician who was so paranoid about his security that he slept in bulletproof pyjamas.  It didn’t make sense to hang around a place where assassins were bound to bust in brandishing belching machine guns.

Anyway, if you carefully read the introduction of this story where I was pretending to be a gourmet, a euphemism for a chap who loves food, you would have known I was just clowning around.

That is if you invested your time in school doing what your parents sent you to do instead of reading James Hardley Chase and Mills and Boon novels and scribbling “I love you” nonsense to pen pals you would never meet. 

Munch

Termitoidae is the scientific name for white ants, those insects called tsiswa that my people munch dead or alive. Zea mays is, of course, maize, so read ugali. Rostronobela argentia is nothing but omena while brassica oleracea is simply sukuma wiki.

So why do fancy restaurants make foods what they are not by giving them fancy names? I say this because for me, food is food and it never amazes me why, the moment we get a bit of money, we turn the simple matter of munching carbohydrates, vitamins and protein into a beauty contest.

Who cares whether you marinate your meat or eat it raw? Bottom line is once it gets down your gut and digestive enzymes get cracking, you end up with amino acids and poop. It doesn’t matter whether you ate the meat at Kwa Njoro or a five star establishment.

Bonkers

That’s why people who go bonkers about politicians horrify me. Look here my friend. You see that politician who makes you crazy? The one you would lay down your life, pen hate speech on social media or torch your neighbour’s hut for?

If that man didn’t use roll on and rode to work in a noisy, stinking matatu like you, his armpit would stink like the average Joe’s — or even worse, like that dish of Rostronobela argentia peppered with Bombay peppers.