Githeri and mukimo: central Kenya's comfort food

Githeri and mukimo are what central Kenya grows, cooked. Maize and beans come off the same small farms on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, and the Kikuyu kitchen turns them into two dishes that every Kenyan knows. Githeri is the humble one: maize and beans boiled together, the lunch of a million schoolchildren. Mukimo is the proud one: potatoes mashed with maize, beans and greens until the whole bowl turns green, served at weddings with roast goat.

Both are filling, cheap and naturally vegetarian, which makes them some of the easiest Kenyan food for visitors to love. Here is the story of each, the regional versions, where to eat a good one, and recipes that work with U.S. ingredients. The wider Kikuyu table, from njahi black beans to arrowroot and millet porridge, is on our Kikuyu food page.

Githeri: maize and beans

Githeri is dried whole maize and dried beans, soaked, then boiled together for two or three hours until both are tender. Eaten plain with salt it is the old farm food. Most cooks then fry it: onions softened in oil, tomatoes cooked down, sometimes potatoes, carrots, cabbage or kale added, and a stock cube or a spoon of curry powder. Fried githeri with a slice of avocado on top is a Nairobi favorite lunch.

For generations, githeri was the default lunch in Kenyan boarding schools, served from huge pots, and grown Kenyans have strong opinions about it. It became a national joke and a national symbol in 2017, when a photo of a voter eating githeri from a plastic bag while he queued to vote went viral and turned him into a celebrity. The dish stands for something Kenyans value: plain, honest, ordinary food.

Mukimo: the green mash

Mukimo is Irish potatoes boiled and mashed with maize (fresh green maize in season, dried maize the rest of the year), beans or green peas, and a pile of greens, most often pumpkin leaves, sometimes stinging nettle, which turns it a deep green. Some cooks add green bananas. It is mashed with a heavy wooden spoon (mwiko) in the pot it was cooked in, which takes muscle, and served in mounds beside beef stew, chicken or nyama choma.

Mukimo is a celebration dish. At a Kikuyu wedding, a dowry visit (ruracio) or a homecoming, the women of the family cook it by the sufuria-load over firewood. Many Nairobi menus call it irio, the Kikuyu word for food, and some restaurants use irio for a simpler mash of potatoes, peas and maize without the greens.

Regional versions and names

Where to eat a good one

In Nairobi, githeri is a lunch-counter staple at the small hotelis of the CBD and the industrial areas; look for a busy place where it is fried to order. Mukimo is at its best in the restaurants and nyama choma joints that cater to central Kenyans, served with goat. Upcountry, the towns of Nyeri, Murang'a and Karatina on the road to Mount Kenya and Laikipia have local cafes that serve both, and a lunch stop on a northern safari route is the natural time. Best of all is a home meal: on a homestay, a cooking day or a diaspora visit to family in central Kenya, mukimo is the dish your hosts will cook to welcome you.

Recipe: githeri for four to six

• 1 1/2 cups dried whole maize (dried field corn from a Latin American grocery, or 2 cans of white hominy for a quick version; hominy tastes a little different but works)
• 1 1/2 cups dried red kidney or cranberry beans, close to Kenya's rosecoco beans
• 2 tablespoons oil, 1 large onion and 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 teaspoon curry powder or a stock cube, salt to taste
• Optional: 2 potatoes and 1 carrot, diced; a handful of chopped kale

• Soak the maize and beans overnight. Drain, cover with fresh water and simmer 2 to 3 hours until both are tender, topping up the water. A pressure cooker does it in about 40 minutes. With canned hominy and canned beans, skip this step
• In a wide pan, soften the onion in oil, add the tomatoes and curry powder and cook down to a paste
• Add the potatoes and carrot with a splash of water and cook 10 minutes, then the drained maize and beans. Simmer 10 minutes more, add the kale at the end, and season
• Serve with avocado slices or alongside a stew

Recipe: mukimo for four to six

• 2 pounds russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 1/2 cups corn kernels, fresh or frozen
• 1 cup cooked beans or green peas
• 6 cups pumpkin leaves (sold at some African groceries) or baby spinach, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter, salt

• Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft, about 15 minutes. Add the greens for the last 5 minutes and the corn and peas for the last 3
• Drain, keeping a cup of the water. Add the butter and mash hard, with a splash of the water, until the mixture is smooth and evenly green with the corn and beans still whole
• Season and serve hot with beef stew or grilled goat

Kiswahili and Kikuyu at the table