Rwanda
Land of a thousand hills: charcoal brochettes by the lake, cooking bananas and a milk bar on every corner.
Evenings in Rwanda belong to brochettes — skewers of goat, beef or fish grilled over charcoal until the edges catch, served with fried potatoes or a fistful of fried bananas and a cold Primus. A roadside grill, a lake view, a plate of goat-liver skewers: this is how the country unwinds, and it's the meal to seek out first.
By day the staple is the cooking banana, ibitoke — starchy, not sweet — boiled in sauce or fried, and the great democratic lunch is the melange, a buffet where you pile a plate with rice, cassava, beans, greens and a little meat for a dollar or two. Look for isombe, cassava leaves pounded and simmered with groundnut, and tiny sambaza fish fried crisp from Lake Kivu. Rwanda is dairy-proud too: pull up at a milk bar for a warm glass of fresh or tangy fermented ikivuguto. Clean, green, unhurried food from the land of hills.
- Brochettes (grilled goat/meat skewers)
- Ubugali (cassava-maize paste)
- Isombe (mashed cassava leaves)
- Ibitoke (cooked green bananas)
- Sambaza (fried Lake Kivu fish)
- Melange (buffet plate)
- Urwagwa (banana beer)
