Have you ever eaten a chapati?

In my last post, I listed a number of firsts experienced during Kenya Safari, our three-month orientation course. Some of those firsts were delightful, others not so much!

Another first was eating chapatis.

When Indians started moving to Kenya (around 1900, if I recall correctly), they introduced chapatis—basically, flour tortillas.

Chapatis consist of about three cups of flour and one cup of cold water stirred together and kneaded for a few minutes.

After letting the dough sit for half an hour, you divide the dough into little balls about the size of a ping pong ball, sprinkle each with flour, and roll them out until they’re very thin.

Traditional recipes call for frying them in a dry pan over a hot fire for a few seconds on each side.

By the time we moved to Kenya, chapatis had become a staple food for Kenyans but over the decades, they’d changed the original Indian recipe.

During our orientation course, the chapatis our Kenyan staff prepared were a quarter of an inch thick (usually thicker) with lard layered in, and fried in lard, too.

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I described them as “unleavened, and with a dense, rubbery consistency.”

Often people tear them into bite-size pieces and drop them into Kenyan stew—cabbage, onions, carrots, and tomatoes boiled together. Sometimes they add a little meat, too.

Mmmm . . . . Recalling such meals makes my mouth water.

Sweet memories—even though I’m sure all that lard could not have been good for us!

This is lovely Jacinta (more about her next week), along with another staff member, James, working at our cooking fire under enormous fig trees in Eleng’ata Enterit.

Jacinta and James at our cook stove during our orientation in Eleng'ata Enterit