Food
Habits of Uganda
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Traditional
drinks
An example
for the preparation of "Maize and
sorghum beer"
Utshwala,
beer brewing
among the Zulu people of the Kwa Zulu
Natal province of South Africa
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INGREDIENTS:
Sorghum
Maize
Beer
was brewed in a special hut by women;
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The grains were
cooked to form a thick porridge,
then left to stand for one day to
steep.
On the second day
the softened grains were boiled
with water to form a milky soup.
The large pot was covered to keep
it warm and aid the fermentation
process for one day.
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The
brew was filtered through a grass
sieve. |
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The liquid was squeezed
out of the grass sieve.
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The
brew liquid remained in the pot and
the lefover grains were put on a selfmade
grass plate. |
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A special clay pot
was used to serve the beer in.
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Transfilling of the beer |
Whether
beer may be considered as an article of
food or not, it was important in the diet
of the natives. It was made from grains
or plantains, of which there were specific
varieties grown purposely for beer-making.
Celebration!
Beer as the infant's
first drink
The Haya were a Bantu speaking
tribe who lived on the western shores
of lake Viktoria, south of the border
between Tanzania and Uganda. After delivery
the infant was given a little sour native
beer by the tribal midwife or mother in
law which was prepared from bananas. The
Haya gave the beer to see weather the
infant was able to swallow and as said
by the natives: "to wake him up from
his/her sleep and to relieve him/her from
the exhaustion of the way from the uterus
and out into the world."
Also among the Karamojong beer was a part
of the infant's diet. On occasion thick
sorghum beer was added in small quantities
after 1 month of age.
References:
1. Rwegelera (1963). "Tribal custom
in infant feeding: among the Haya."
East African Medical Journal 40(7): 366-369.
2. Jelliffe, D. B., B. F. J, et al. (1964).
"Ecology of childhood disease in
the Karamojong in Uganda." Archives
of environmental health 9: 25-36.
Native beer as a daily
drink
From infancy on, native
beer was drunk almost daily by a lot of
ethnical groups in Uganda. It was customary
to start the day in Teso households by
drinking a cup of gourd of beer. Food
was not partaken until noon, the time
when the most serious work of the day
was over. The beer was made from sorghum
and was fermented by yeasts. A speculation
was made by Loewenthal that sorghum beer
was important as a pellagra and scurvy
preventative.
Reference:
Loewenthal, J. A. (1935). "An inquiry
into vitamin A deficiency among the population
of the Teso, Uganda, with special reference
to school children." Annual Tropical
Medicine 29: 349.
"Wimbi" beer
in Teso
Beer brewing from stored
"wimbi" (finger millet, Eleusine
cocracana) in two small administrative
units (atongoles) in Teso, Uganda in 1937
PDF:
An
investigation into health and agriculture
in Teso, Uganda 1937
Preparation of a "blood
meal"
©Maryam
Imbumi
"In Karamoja, Uganda,
adult men took a mixture of raw defibrinated
blood and milk whenever possible."
(Holmes, 1955)
"To calves were
bled from the jugular vein and collected
in a calabash. It was then stirred with
a stick till the fibrin clot formed. The
fibrin was removed and during the dry
season it is cooked and eaten by the men
but in the rainy seasons, when the animals
were in good condition and could be bled
frequently, it would be given to the dogs.
The volume of defibrinated blood was 36
fluid oz. And the calabash was about half
full. An equal volume of milk was added
and the mixture provided a man's meal."
(Holmes, 1955)
E. G. Holmes and colleagues
prepared a similar meal by themselves,
from slaughterhouse blood and milk. They
estimated the protein nitrogen by the
Kjeldahl method. Together with the value
for the milk composition derived from
food tables, the following result for
the meal was obtained:
