A basket of lovely fresh fruit & vegetables, waiting to be unpacked in my pantry yesterday I thought it would be interesting to show you how I buy my fruit and vegetables. The photo above is of a basketful (‘kikapu’ as we call them here) that I brought back to the farm with me yesterday.
I buy them from a lady who has a stall on the side of the road in the ‘big city’. No check out lines, plastic carrier bags or receipts here – oh, no ! I stand alongside the busy road and tell her what I’d like. “Your mangoes look good today, Mama” I say “But how fresh are they ?” she will reply “Ah, Mama Lynda. They are very fresh for you. They came up from Mombasa just yesterday”. Or I will say “Please can I have some apples ?” and she may reply “No, no, I won’t sell you apples today, these are not so fresh”. Everything gets weighed on a dodgy old battered scale, and is then placed carefully into the basket. (It takes both my husband and Justin to lift it out of the car, to give you an idea of it’s size/weight !).
I have been buying my produce from “my veggie Mama” for over 6 years now, and she knows things like the fact that I don’t ever cook with or eat green peppers – so she will never sell them to me, or that I have avocados on my own tree at home, so I will never buy those from her, either. When my daughter had just been born, my order would always come with some complimentary fruit of some sort – a bunch of bananas, a handful of oranges “to give you strength” she told me, smilingly, as she would press them into my hand “no charge for these, they are a zawadi (gift)”. Now my daughter gets a fruit gift whenever she is there with me “for the toto (child)” she will say “so that she grows up to be big and strong” and my daughter will grin back at her “Asante, mama !” ("Thank You, Mama !") as she peels a large, fresh banana or whatever she's been given.
I order a selection of ripe or unripe produce, so that it lasts us. So, for example I will order 3 kg’s of unripe tomatoes and 2 kg’s of ripe tomatoes, so that we have enough fresh tomatoes to see us through to our next town trip. I also order unripe bananas, mangos, paw paws and things like that. I make sure that we eat the very perishable vegetables within days of returning from town … things like spinach and lettuce. Vegetables like pumpkin and butternut last forever, so they go into the pantry.
I store all my veggies in plastic zip up bags – which are like gold in Tanzania, and we use and re-use them and I always stock up on these when I travel – I think they are one of the best inventions ever (!!) When the bags are old and worn and full of holes, the staff ask if they can have them – goodness knows what they do with them, but they are rather coveted here – probably because of the plastic zip thingy ? Goodness knows !
I have a specially built wooden and gauze covered storage cupboard in my pantry where I keep my potatoes, onions, melons, pumpkins and the unripe fruit and veg. The rest goes into my 2 fridges and into the fruit bowls on my dining table and kitchen table.
I have been busy washing, sorting and cleaning the veggies all day. So much so that I had no time to even speak to my brother-in-law in the UK on Skype this afternoon. (Sorry, Chris – you know I wasn’t making excuses – here’s the photo to prove it … and if you don’t believe me, I’ll throw that monstrous water melon that you can see just peeking out of the basket at you, okay ?!!)
I buy them from a lady who has a stall on the side of the road in the ‘big city’. No check out lines, plastic carrier bags or receipts here – oh, no ! I stand alongside the busy road and tell her what I’d like. “Your mangoes look good today, Mama” I say “But how fresh are they ?” she will reply “Ah, Mama Lynda. They are very fresh for you. They came up from Mombasa just yesterday”. Or I will say “Please can I have some apples ?” and she may reply “No, no, I won’t sell you apples today, these are not so fresh”. Everything gets weighed on a dodgy old battered scale, and is then placed carefully into the basket. (It takes both my husband and Justin to lift it out of the car, to give you an idea of it’s size/weight !).
I have been buying my produce from “my veggie Mama” for over 6 years now, and she knows things like the fact that I don’t ever cook with or eat green peppers – so she will never sell them to me, or that I have avocados on my own tree at home, so I will never buy those from her, either. When my daughter had just been born, my order would always come with some complimentary fruit of some sort – a bunch of bananas, a handful of oranges “to give you strength” she told me, smilingly, as she would press them into my hand “no charge for these, they are a zawadi (gift)”. Now my daughter gets a fruit gift whenever she is there with me “for the toto (child)” she will say “so that she grows up to be big and strong” and my daughter will grin back at her “Asante, mama !” ("Thank You, Mama !") as she peels a large, fresh banana or whatever she's been given.
I order a selection of ripe or unripe produce, so that it lasts us. So, for example I will order 3 kg’s of unripe tomatoes and 2 kg’s of ripe tomatoes, so that we have enough fresh tomatoes to see us through to our next town trip. I also order unripe bananas, mangos, paw paws and things like that. I make sure that we eat the very perishable vegetables within days of returning from town … things like spinach and lettuce. Vegetables like pumpkin and butternut last forever, so they go into the pantry.
I store all my veggies in plastic zip up bags – which are like gold in Tanzania, and we use and re-use them and I always stock up on these when I travel – I think they are one of the best inventions ever (!!) When the bags are old and worn and full of holes, the staff ask if they can have them – goodness knows what they do with them, but they are rather coveted here – probably because of the plastic zip thingy ? Goodness knows !
I have a specially built wooden and gauze covered storage cupboard in my pantry where I keep my potatoes, onions, melons, pumpkins and the unripe fruit and veg. The rest goes into my 2 fridges and into the fruit bowls on my dining table and kitchen table.
I have been busy washing, sorting and cleaning the veggies all day. So much so that I had no time to even speak to my brother-in-law in the UK on Skype this afternoon. (Sorry, Chris – you know I wasn’t making excuses – here’s the photo to prove it … and if you don’t believe me, I’ll throw that monstrous water melon that you can see just peeking out of the basket at you, okay ?!!)
