Shame on no-ugali restaurants

Today, I want to revisit the subject of the decolonisation of the Black African mind. I want us to discuss the issue of Africa’s confined mind which is entombed in a heap of warped ideologies and complexes of inferiority. I believe too many Black people have normalised mental slavery and have come to accept it as a given of universal life. I say nyet to self-emasculation.

I won’t drink that Kool-Aid, and neither should you. My point of departure is a certain selection of supposedly haute couture eateries and restaurants in Kenya whose distinction is the contempt and disdain for African cuisine. I have dubbed them “no-ugali” restaurants for their fake and racist pretensions. Shame on the whole lot.

I need to make clear that I have no problem with country, or region-specific, eateries. I welcome pizza parlours for their sumptuous delicacies. Or Thai, Indian, Chinese, Eritrean, and other restaurants dedicated to specific cuisines.

But I will not take lying down general food restaurants labelled Italian, or whatever other racial designation, that serve everything under God’s sun, but refuse to serve any African foods on GP, or general principle. I say screw them. Let me peel your eyes. In fact, I will go further – to hell with them! These “high end” restaurants will gladly serve you an American hamburger – a clearly inferior food filled with killer cholesterol – but will turn up their noses if you ask for ugali.

Highfalutin restaurants

I am a native of Kenya who lives in America, and so when I come back to visit, I am not looking to eat a hamburger, or whatever other foods you imagine are American. I want home grown soul foods including ugali, sukuma-wiki, mutura, muthokoi, or githeri, mukimo, and other local dishes. Let me not forget nyama choma. Kenya has very rich and delectable cuisines from various parts of the country, including camel meat. You won’t find them in the highfalutin restaurants. This hierarchy and stacking of foods by their pecking order according to their racial nativity, or domiciliary, closely matches the white supremacist notions of the international ethnic and racial hierarchies. In these orders, Africa is always last.

Several weeks ago, I had a decidedly appetite-killing experience at a Nairobi “high end” restaurant in an upscale hotel. The menu ran into some six pages populated by virtually every generic European and American dish. You know the usual fare – chicken, different meats, pastas, rice, many starches, and an assortment of condiments. But distinctly missing from the menu was ugali and sukuma. I had a big appetite for sirloin, sukuma, and ugali on that day. I looked for the last two items on the menu in vain. I waved to the waitperson and ordered them anyway. The waitperson’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Mheshimiwa,” the burly fellow intoned with a look of amazement, “we don’t carry such food items here.”

I knew right there and then we were going to have a problem, especially because of the dismissive tone which he said “such food items.” It was as though I was asking to be served human flesh. Look – ugali, sukuma, and some meat is the most popular dish in Kenya. I had not ordered crocodile meat. I asked why, emphasis added to my voice, they don’t carry “such food items.” Without blinking, my compatriot told me that theirs was a “high level” restaurant that didn’t serve “such foods.” A hamburger was on the menu. I asked him if a hamburger was a “high level” restaurant food. With a toothy grin he nodded vigorously and said, “Yes sir, it’s American.”

Delicious lunch

To him, the matter should’ve ended there when he pronounced the hamburger American. I dismissed him and told him to bring me the chef, which he did. Predictably, the chef was a little refined and “begged” me to understand the establishment’s target clientele. He said their customers were usually “people like you” or “foreigners.”

It was now time for my jaw to drop. His view was that there were enough accessible “low-end” places that serve ugali in Nairobi. At that point, I left and returned home for a delicious lunch of matoke. This wasn’t the first time I had been refused ugali in a Nairobi restaurant, but it was the first time I had decided to interrogate the staff.

Why would an American, or Belgian, come to Kenya only to eat what they do at home? Part of the tourist experience is to sample local foods. Why do we lack pride in our cuisines and cultures? Even in “high-end” eateries owned by Black Africans? In Europe, or America, they generally serve you their “traditional” foods. You will struggle to locate an African restaurant. This reminds me of certain “high-end” so-called international schools that don’t teach Kiswahili. The Ministry of Education should never permit such racist nonsense. But it all goes back to why we must decolonise our minds. We have a lot to offer the world.

Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.