Nyama Choma, Ugali and a Tusker: Kenyan Food on Safari and Off

Food in Kenya on a family trip happens in two places, the safari camp and the city, and the camps are the surprise. Three meals a day cooked in a bush kitchen that would pass in a hotel, with a chef who makes a plain pasta for a child without being asked.

Nyama choma is the national dish. Goat or beef grilled slowly over charcoal, served on a board with salt, kachumbari, which is a tomato and onion salad, and ugali. It is a Sunday, a celebration, a thing to do with friends at a roadside place with a view. Order a kilo for the table and let the kids eat with their hands like everyone else.

Ugali is the maize porridge, cooked stiff, cut in slices, used to scoop the stew. It is the staple of the whole country. Kids either take to it or leave it, and a chapati, the flatbread the Indian community brought, is the alternative that every child eats.

The camp table and the coast

Camp breakfasts are eggs, fruit, pancakes, sometimes served in the bush on a table under a tree with a giraffe behind. Lunch is a buffet. Dinner is three courses by lantern. Sukuma wiki, the greens, with everything. Pilau rice with spices on a special night. Mandazi, the fried dough, with tea in the morning.

On the coast at Diani or Watamu the food turns Swahili. Coconut rice, fish curry, samosas, and mango so ripe it runs down the arm. Chips mayai, an omelet with fries in it, is the kids’ dish from any beach stall.

Tusker is the beer, and a cold one at the sundowner with the guide is part of the safari. The kids get a Stoney, the ginger beer that is stronger than any at home. Bottled water everywhere, including the camps, which supply it. And chai, milky and sweet, at every stop.

Planning Kenya with kids? Start with the full Kenya family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.