If you are travelling to a new country or town, you want to know what kinds of foods are available on the list of what you are already familiar with. Fish is a common meat all over Africa and it is not in short supply in Kenya. Fish falls in the category of white meat and many, including vegans consider fish to be healthy meat.
The bulk of the fish eaten in Nairobi comes from Kisumu, a town on the western coast of Kenya. Kisumu is home to Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake world wide after Lake Baikal, south of Siberia in Russia. Lake Victoria straddles the borders of three East African countries namely Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
Late evening, at about 9.00 pm to 10.00 pm, hundreds of fishermen load their day’s catch onto lorries built with fridges in the rear. These lorries drive to Nairobi to deliver the fish, arriving in the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi at dusk. By ten o’clock that same morning the fish will be in hotel fridges, butchery fridge’s and a significant number will be on kitchen counters waiting to become someone’s lunch or dinner. There are many versions of fish dishes in Kenya because fish is served in many formS.
There is fish fillet predominantly from the Nile Perch also known as mbuta by the locals of Kisumu. Nile Perch is an oily fish, but its size makes it ideal for fillet. Although it has a slight scent, when prepared with spices the scent disappears and leaves an exciting meat to tantalize the palate. In the low-end fast food outlets, mbuta fillet is a thin slice of fish covered in a layer of deep-fried wheat dough.
The slice of fish fillet often accompanies French fries, more commonly known as ‘chips’ and a soda. It is an ideal fast food menu for students and low-income earners within the city centre. However, there are slices of fish fillet that find their way to three, four and five star hotels. A chunk of fish fillet with spicy sauces in these establishments may go for anything from $5 to $15. This makes eating fish in such places a dish out of the league of most low and middle-income earners in Nairobi.
Hotels in Nairobi serve another fish dish to compensate for the gap. There are thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of natives from Kisumu and its environs in Nairobi. Members of this community are predominantly fish eaters. They enjoy fish, but are more picky as native fish eaters. They influence eating patterns of other Nairobi dwellers making fish a common dish amongst those of middle income. To cater for their refined palate, many eateries catering to middle-income earners in Nairobi have whole fish on their menu.
Whole fish is primarily Tilapia or Ngege as it is called in local lingua. Eating this fish is both an art and a science. It is an art in that one needs to appreciate the parts with the best flesh and enjoy those first. Being a medium sized fish, Tilapia has small hazardous bones around its gills. Eating Tilapia is therefore a science because one must intellectually interpret its anatomy and find the spots with tiny bones one can easily choke on. Combining the art and science of eating whole fish, one can eat with abandon where there is no hazard, and work meticulously and with caution to avoid small and potentially dangerous bones.
Topic: The Variety of Fish Dishes in Nairobi, Kenya (Read 2514 times)
