Kamba food: muthokoi and the dryland kitchen

Kamba cooking is the food of a dry country. Ukambani, the Kamba homeland in Machakos, Kitui and Makueni counties, gets less rain than the highlands to its west, and in some years the rains fail. So the Kamba kitchen is built on crops that survive drought and food that keeps: pigeon peas, green grams, cowpeas, sorghum, millet, and maize that has been dried, dehulled and stored. The dish that holds it all together is muthokoi.

Muthokoi is maize with the outer skin removed, boiled slowly with beans or pigeon peas until soft, then fried with onion and tomato. It looks like githeri's smoother cousin and tastes milder and creamier. Our Kamba people page tells the story of the caravan traders, the kilumi dance and the carvers; this page covers what is on the plate, where to eat it, and how to make muthokoi at home.

The dishes that define the table

Muthokoi comes first. Traditionally the maize was soaked and pounded in a wooden mortar until the skins came loose, then winnowed; today most families buy it already dehulled in the market. It is cooked with beans, nzuu (pigeon peas) or cowpeas, and on a good day with a little meat. Muthokoi takes time, an hour or more on the fire, which is why it is often cooked in a big pot and eaten over two days.

Isyo, also called kitheri, is the Kamba name for whole maize and beans boiled together, the same family of dish as Kikuyu githeri. Ngima is ugali, eaten with greens and stew. Pulses fill the gaps: nzuu simmered with onion and tomato; ndengu (green grams), of which Kitui and Makueni are major growers; and cowpeas, whose leaves are eaten too.

The dryland greens are the clever part. Pumpkin leaves and cowpea leaves are picked during the rains, boiled briefly and dried in the sun, then stored for the months when nothing grows. Rehydrated and fried with onion, they taste of the season they were picked in. Usuu, a porridge of fermented millet or sorghum, is drunk warm in the morning and given to the sick and to nursing mothers.

The ingredient: honey

Long before the railway, Kamba traders carried honey and beeswax to the coast with their ivory and skins. Beekeeping is still part of life in Kitui and Makueni, where log hives hang in the acacia and baobab trees. The honey is dark and strongly flavored, and some families still brew a traditional honey beer for ceremonies. Buy a jar in Kitui or along the Mombasa Road: it is one of the best food souvenirs in Kenya, and it travels well in checked luggage if sealed.

Ceremony food

• Dowry and wedding days: goats change hands and are roasted, with muthokoi, rice, chapati and pilau cooked in quantity
• Homecomings and Christmas: nyama choma, goat stew and muthokoi, with relatives back from Nairobi and abroad
• After a birth: usuu porridge and soup for the new mother
• Harvest: green maize roasted or boiled on the cob, and the first pigeon peas of the season

Words for the table

Where to eat Kamba food

Machakos town, about an hour from Nairobi on a good day, is the gateway, and local restaurants there serve muthokoi, ngima and goat at lunch. Kitui and Wote, the Makueni county town, are smaller and more local. The easiest Kamba food stop for most travelers is the Mombasa Road, which runs through Ukambani on the way to Tsavo, Amboseli or the coast: the towns of Sultan Hamud, Emali, Makindu and Kibwezi have roadside nyama choma, fruit stalls and, in season from about November to March, piles of Makueni mangoes. Wamunyu, the carving village, is worth a detour from Machakos.

In Nairobi, muthokoi is harder to find on menus than githeri; it is mostly a home dish. Kenyan restaurants that serve traditional food sometimes list it, and Kamba-run canteens in the city cook it for lunch on certain days. If you have Kamba family, it will be cooked for you.

How the plate is changing

The dryland crops were once seen as food for hard years. Now green grams, pigeon peas and sorghum are cash crops, sold to Nairobi and exported, and county programs push farmers toward them because they cope with drought better than maize. Mango processing in Makueni has grown. In the towns, rice, chapati and bread are everyday food, and muthokoi is often a weekend or holiday dish.

A home recipe: muthokoi with beans

• 2 cups dehulled maize (sold as muthokoi in African grocers; white hominy is a close U.S. substitute)
• 1 cup dried beans or pigeon peas, soaked overnight
• 1 onion, 2 tomatoes, 1 carrot, all chopped
• 2 tablespoons oil, salt, optional curry powder and a handful of coriander

• Rinse the maize and soak it with the beans for at least 4 hours or overnight
• Boil both together in plenty of water for 1 to 1.5 hours, topping up as needed, until the beans are soft and the maize is tender. Dried hominy takes about the same time; canned hominy can be added for the last 15 minutes
• Drain, keeping a cup of the cooking water
• In a wide pan, soften the onion in oil, add the tomato, carrot and curry powder and cook to a sauce
• Add the maize and beans and a little cooking water, stir and simmer 10 minutes. Season, finish with coriander and serve with greens