I have been here in Uganda for about 6 months know and have come to know alot about food and how it is prepared. Far different from back home in the states everyone knows how there food is raised/grown, harvested/slaughtered, and prepared. I find this very interesting and in many ways very appealing. The Ugandans marvel that back home we can go to a grocery store and all of our food is there waiting processed and in many cases prepared. Here if they want to eat some meat they have to slaughter the animal if they want some potatoes they go dig them from the garden. It gives them a appreciation for the food they are eating that is often missing in America because they know the work that has gone into getting it all the way to there mouths.
So this takes us to yesterday evening. Though I have observed and prepared the cooking of many different foods I had not yet seen how the meat and in this case the chicken make it from pecking around the year to my plate. So I discussed this with the guards at my home and they offered to show me how it was done. I offered to buy the chicken which costs about 5 U.S. dollars if they would show me how to prepare it. So I gave them the money to purchase the chicken at the market because I needed to go in to work for a while. When I arrived home I was greeted by the chicken. I began to get a bit nervous about having to kill the chicken but I thought it was only right that if I was willing to eat the chicken I also must be willing to kill the the food I am going to eat if the opportunity arises. The only animal I have every killed was a deer when I went hunting with some friends but that was with a gun a far less personal then this would be.
So the guards showed me how to kill and prepare but left me to do the work. It in not a difficult process and in the end we ended up having chicken soup with Matooke ( a type of banana like Plantains) and cabbage. The food was very delicious and also had more meaning to me because I now had a relation to the food I was eating. So it was more then just eating food it was an experience that I shared with the preparation of the food. It is hard to explain but it is definitely a more meaningful eating experience not just to my stomach.
So if anyone is wanting to eat some chicken when I come home I can show you how to really prepare it not just the stuff you buy from the freezer at the local supermarket. My time is about to run out here on the Internet an I have not gone back to read this so I hope it sounds alright.
Chad
