Baking, Tanzanian Style

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Sitting over lunch with her teaching assistants at the Early Years Centre, Gerry became curious about the food they were bringing to eat. There were some very typical Tanzanian foods that one sees a lot - rice with beans, pillau, mendazi, chapati, fruit… But Gerry’s attention was caught by the bread that Pendo, one of the members of her staff, brought to school - lovely, fresh, golden brown, white bread. Pendo told Gerry that she made her own bread. She baked it on her jiko, Swahili for stove.

Jikos come in a number of forms. Pendo’s jiko is a deep pan about 14 inches in diameter that burns charcoal, one of the main fuels in use here. There are also jikos about the same size that burn kerosene. The alternative to a jiko that many people in villages use to cook over is a wood fire built with three large rocks. On a cooking fire, the fuel is sticks of wood that are fed into the middle of the fire. The pan sits over the fire on top of the rocks.

Gerry, whose fame as a cook is known far and wide and who is always interested in learning more about food preparation, asked if one day she might join Pendo for a baking lesson. So, this blog is about that lesson in baking bread on a jiko. Of course the visit to Pendo’s also provided a wonderful insight into the home life of a young Tanzanian woman. Pendo, who is one of the 20% or so of the population of Tanzania who live in a city, is a wife and a mother of two daughters. She is employed, as is her husband. Pendo and her family live in a one room flat that is about 4m by 4m. It is one of a number of flats arranged in a u-shaped courtyard not far from where we live. Pendo has electricity, but water is accessed from a communal tap in the courtyard. The toilets are also communal. All Pendo’s cooking is done on a jiko, which sits either on the veranda of her flat or on the ground.

There are also two pictures here from a visit to a village near Dodoma where Mariam, another of Gerry's teaching assistants, lives. One of the pictures is of Mariam's cooking fire (three rocks) and the other is of her waving good-bye with some of the village children.

By the way, both Mariam and Pendo are excellent cooks. The lunch that Pendo served us was delicious as was the bread that resulted from Gerry’s lesson in jiko cookery.

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Photos

The ingredients for the bread are prepared.
The liquid that is added to the flour is coconut milk, made by soaking shredded coconut in warm water and then squeezing out the coconut meat.

Mixing
The floor in Pendo's room becomes the counter.

The pan with the bread dough is placed inside a larger pan.
The lid, weighted down with sand, is in place and covered with burning coals to help with the baking.

This is the cooking fire at a village agricultural project near Dodoma.
Food for forty or more would be prepared here.

Mariam
The fire was tucked in beside the beginnings of a small house being built in the village. It may be a while before the house is finished and until then it will double as a garden.