people, let’s say there were four or five times this number. People were even standing with their drinks. Now, they come because of that legacy, and especially for the food.
Peru was here with us all the time, and people still come for his BBQ.
He continued, ‘Biashara ya bar ni jiko, hatuuzi vinywaji tunauza chakula, pombe unaweza pata kila mahali. Ili watu waje kwako wanafata jiko’ (In the Bar business, you do not sell the drinks, a bar is a kitchen. People come because of the food, not the alcohol we sell).
Although Uhuru Peak is no longer among the most famous bars in Dar es Salaam as it was a decade ago, still, now and then customers who used to come still show up. My conversations with Deo and other VIP members revealed that food from Peru draws them back to Uhuru Peak. Regular customers of Uhuru Peak include a group of lawyers who have an office nearby. Every lunchtime, they come to Uhuru Peak to eat. Although Peru admitted that the number of customers has dropped over the years, he has still managed to keep a good number of them who come regularly.
Deo’s assertion that ‘the bar is the kitchen’ can be seen in every bar in Dar es Salaam.
Most bars in Dar es Salaam are constructed with a kitchen in mind. No matter how big the bar might be, the kitchen is usually filled with several charcoal stoves. Although some bars and hotels have slowly started switching to gas stoves, they have still not completely abandoned the famous charcoal stoves. The charcoal stove holds a vital place in assemblages of vibrant out-of-home dining in Tanzania. Apart from high-end restaurants, it is almost impossible to dine in Dar es Salaam without eating food prepared on a jiko la mkaa (charcoal cookstove).
‘amepata jiko’ (he got himself a kitchen/stove), that means a man has married. From the uses of noun jiko, we can already see that the stove is a woman’s object, and the kitchen is women’s place.
However, this interpretation is limited to the household sphere. Once jiko as an object or place moves outside of residences, it becomes a gender-contested sphere. At home, jiko is a woman, a woman’s object, and a woman’s place. Rarely do men, especially heads of household, enter the kitchen, let alone prepare food. Men who cook at home are laughed at because they have entered the women’s arena. Although men do shop for food, they rarely cook. It only happens or is accepted when wives are travelling or sick. In many cases, men who happen to help their wives with kitchen work are mocked by family members and society.
Swahili has two words for the act of marrying someone, kuoa and kuolewa.15 The first word is used only to refer to men and the second only to women. Men who cook or do kitchen chores are stripped of their manhood and the title of head of the family, and instead are referred to as married by their wives, wameolewa. When a man is called ameolewa, it means that the woman has power over the household. There are even more derogatory ways to describe this situation; the man might be called mme bwege(jerk husband), kapigwa limbwata (bewitched husband), kakaliwa (the wife is seating on the husband), or mwanaume suruali (not man enough). However, a jiko outside the household is a gender bender. Both women and men participate in food businesses and occupy commercial kitchen spaces. However, if one looks keenly at food preparation outside the household sphere, one can see differences in the kind of food businesses that are predominately male or female. Here, I make the distinction between regular food businesses, meaning food that is usually prepared in the household, and fast-food
15 Kuoa is a used only for men, as they are supposed marry a woman, and kuolewa is used for women to mean that she has been married by a man. Ameoa- singular/wameoa-plural for men getting married and ameolewa-singular/wameolewa- plural for the same act of getting married
businesses, urban street bites that usually involve deep frying. The former is dominated by women while the latter is the business of men.
The regular food includes starches like rice, ugali,16 and plantain with accompanying sauces of different kind of meat, legumes, and vegetables. Places serving these kinds of food are famously known as Mama Lishe. The name itself suggests a female-dominated business.
On the other side, in fast food and food served in recreational areas like pubs and bars, men dominate. Fast food in Dar es Salaam is extremely popular. Most of these places are not like fast food outlets in the Western world (e.g., McDonalds); however, they prepare similar food, such as deep-fried french fries, fried chicken, eggs, and fish.
As I have mentioned, the fast-food places are not regarded as dine-out restaurants;
instead, they are places to grab a quick bite. Many of them occupy makeshift places, perhaps just a table outside. People usually grab fries and eggs (‘chips mayai’) or chicken and chips (‘chips kuku’) when they are hungry. In contrast, eating or dining out, for the majority of people in Dar es Salaam, means nyama choma (BBQ grill). Nyama choma are prepared in bars and other recreational areas. Normally, people in Tanzania prefer to have nyama choma outside their homes. On rare occasions, nyama choma is grilled at home. In nyama choma places like Uhuru Peak, one can get well-prepared beef, goat, and chicken BBQ served with drinks and alcohol while Bongo Fleva or Congolese Rhumba plays in the background.
Mama Lishe usually uses a similar type of stove to those used at home—a short object placed on the ground, which allows for sitting while preparing food. In contrast, in bars and fast-food places where men are predominant, they use taller stoves that allow the chef to stand while preparing food. My interpretation here is that if men prepared food on the small stove while sitting, it would look the same as when women prepare food, hence the action would challenge their masculinity. The same logic applies to the kind of foods men prepare, which
are not traditionally prepared in the home kitchen. By doing this, they distance themselves from women’s objects and places. In addition, preparing food while sitting is related to the gossiping that women do when preparing food at home. Gossiping is interpreted as women’s talk. In Chapter 5, I discussed how Mwanawane and his kin specialise in making cookstoves only for household users, meaning women. This is unlike George, who focused more on BBQs and stoves for restaurants and bars. There is another reason for the specialisation.
The need for new models and technological change in household stoves is slow compared to restaurants. While household stoves need to continue to support the household gatherings that women are responsible for, restaurants are more open to efficiency and cost-saving technologies. I do not mean that women do not consider efficiency or cost-saving money.
However, households are more sceptical towards new technologies. Several researchers have pointed out that the major fault of new energy-saving stoves is that they do not consider the social and historical factors around stove use (Beukering et al., 2007; D’Agostino, Urpelainen,
& Xu, 2015; Ghilardi, Mwampamba, & Dutt, 2013; Kar & Zerriffi, 2018). Usually, these stoves are designed or supported by NGOs and international organisations in the name of saving women from the horrendous labour of collecting firewood and associated health problems while also hoping to conserve forests, and these actors often overlook the practices and forms of sociality that take shape around cooking. As noted in Chapter 5, George’s stove designs have worked to integrate gas systems. Gas is becoming cheaper, cleaner, and safer. Restaurants, especially lavish ones, prefer gas over charcoal to prepare certain meals. Of course, charcoal BBQ stoves are still widely preferred. This is because of taste preferences, but also due to the way that BBQ has traditionally been prepared over open fire.
Again, I discussed the integration of a clay system into the stoves by Mwanawane and his family in Chapter 5. Boastfully, they spoke about how women love their stoves because of that particular integration, which saves charcoal by burning it more slowly and holding heat
longer. The same kind of intervention can be seen in the unpopular energy-saving stoves. I will come back to energy-saving stoves later. Here I ask, why do people use charcoal stoves?