Matooke Goes With Everything
Illustration by Ben McDonald
A love letter to the beating heart of Ugandan food, Matooke. With Katasi E. Kironde and Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama.
Katasi was a co-host on Unsavoury Ethnic Types podcast, who did a great episode about Ugandan food. She also guest-curated a recent issue of Fare magazine all about Kampala. We talked a bit more about a couple of pieces in the magazine, and those bits of the interview are going to be available on the Patreon bonus podcast episode. You can get access to those by signing up for £3 at patreon.com/leckerpodcast
Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.
If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.
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Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
Transcript below, or via Audioboom.
Lecker22_E6_MatookeGoesWithEverything_1
Thu, 7/14 12:30PM • 30:42
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
uganda, eat, parcel, banana leaf, people, banana, mash, cook, prepare, put, mum, bit, kampala, boil, sauce, food, meat, serve, podcast, home
SPEAKERS
Katasi E. Kironde, Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama, Lucy Dearlove
Lucy Dearlove 00:05
This is Lecker. I'm Lucy Dearlove. This month: Matooke Goes With Everything
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 00:25
You know, when you say that...if...you ask if it tastes different here, compared to Uganda? The thing is in Uganda, they don't boil it, just boil it as we boil it here. So what they do, they have a basket like this, and they get the fibre from the banana leaf. And they put it cross, cross in the basket. Then they get a banana, another, a big banana leaf, depending on how many people you're cooking for. And you put it, you fold it and you put it in the basket. So you peel your matooke, and you put it in this banana leaf and make a big parcel. Yeah? Using the banana fibres, you tie it up. And then the way they cook it, then they...put like...it's been modernized now. Before they used to take the stalk from the banana itself, you know, the banana, the bunch and put it under the sauce...underneath in the saucepan, then put all... sort of making a steamer. Yeah?
Katasi E. Kironde 01:24
A natural steamer, yeah.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 01:26
And then they will put this parcel on top of the stalks, you know? And then you use the banana leaves and sort of cover it up, put it in a saucepan and cover, people use about six or seven green ones. And then you boil it. To get the aroma of the banana leaf.
Katasi E. Kironde 01:47
Yeah.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 01:48
And then after it's been cooked, they don't mash it with a masher like we do here. They use their hands and sort of another banana leaf. And they use their hands to mash it within the, you know, in the parcel. I don't know how the women know - or whoever's cooking know - that the...I don't know how they know that is mashed enough and it has no lumps in it. But they do it because they don't open the banana leaf to see if it's soft, or if it's ready or not. And then once they've done that, they put it back in the saucepan and go over the whole process again, of re-steaming it so that way it becomes softer and yellow. And it takes more aroma from the banana leaves.
Katasi E. Kironde 02:32
It's steaming, it comes off...it's served to you steaming, you know as opposed to here...you know it's a little bit lumpier. And also, I feel like it's the original slow cooker, because these...four hours it might take just make this...
Lucy Dearlove 02:48
Just over this very low heat, just the ashes, yeah.
Katasi E. Kironde 02:51
Yeah, My name is Katasi E. Kironde. I'm from West London via Kampala.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 02:59
My name is Elizabeth Kibalama. I'm Katasi's mother. And actually, same thing. I grew up in Uganda now been here in England for quite some...a number of years.
Lucy Dearlove 03:16
So when I asked...when I asked Katasti if she would speak to me for Lecker, basically the first thing you said was like "Do you want to speak to my mum, as well, because I learned everything I know from her?" So maybe you could just tell me a bit about how you learned to cook Elizabeth. You know, what did you grow up eating?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 03:35
You know something, it was really amazing. I think I learned cooking when I was about six years old. I could make the groundnut sauce. So what you're gonna have some now! Yeah, yeah, I was allowed to do groundnut sauce. So I think basically, that was the first thing I was allowed to cook. Because by then I was living with an uncle of mine, you know, sort of, in sort of in the village. We used to grow our own food, like tomatoes and all the vegetables and everything. One just had to go to the garden to pick up the tomatoes and onions, and you've come home and you cut up the onions and...and funnily enough, we never fried anything at all, we never used any oils at all, you know, it was all natural. And then as far as matooke was concerned - this was really crazy - because there is a special knife the people at home use. It's sort of hooked, you know, at the top here like this and it's got a wooden, a wooden handle. As they got...that knife gets older, the wooden handle breaks off. So they tend to give that to the children to learn to peel so that they don't cut themselves and it was always blunt.
Lucy Dearlove 04:53
So much harder?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 04:56
Yeah, but anyway, I think they just didn't want us to cut ourselves, you know, so many of us...we struggled, but we eventually got into the idea of learning how to peel the matooke. And then, of course, by then I could watch how my aunt used to, you know, to prepare the matooke and all that.
Lucy Dearlove 05:18
And could you explain what matooke is?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 05:21
It's a form of...a banana. But this one is not eaten as a fruit, it;s eaten as a staple food, like you could eat sweet potato or mashed potato, or something like that.
Katasi E. Kironde 05:40
If I'm very specific, in Buganda, like the ethnic group that we are from the centre and around Kampala, many people will say like "a meal isn't a meal without matooke". Like you haven't eaten, if you've eaten anything else, you've eaten rice, sweet potato, chapati and there's no matooke...it's not food, as they would say!
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 06:00
In actual fact, they always say.....when they say food, which is emmere, in Uganda, they mean matooke.
Lucy Dearlove 06:07
Okay, right!
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 06:09
Yeah. The others are additionals. Yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 06:14
So if someone says that, you know, they mean Matooke, wow.
Katasi E. Kironde 06:16
Yeah. There's really no matooke, there's no food. It's very specific to the, to the Great Lakes region. So you'd find it in Congo and Rwanda. I think in Rwanda they call it Etooke, yeah, in Tanzania, especially around...I mean, Uganda is landlocked. So anywhere around, really, you'll find it.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 06:39
Literally all around around Lake Victoria.
Katasi E. Kironde 06:43
We buy it in Shepherds Bush...do you get it from Strawberry Hill, from Strawberry Hill?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 06:48
Yeah from Strawberry Hill.
Katasi E. Kironde 06:48
Strawberry Hill, very specific shop within the market. But it's cheaper to buy in boxes, but we would never finish a whole box. You can get better prices in South London and East London and where there's more clusters of Ugandan people. And if you go too late, sometimes that we have to call them up and say, Oh, can you just hold them back for us? And we might not find any.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 07:13
Yeah, they know us now. There is something called Luwombo and that is vegetables or meat prepared in a banana leaf. They get a basket like this. And then they get the young of the plant, the banana leaf without holes in it, and they would smoke it. You know, they pass it over the fire and it becomes more like plasticky. And then they fold it, put it in the basket, then you can put your...depending on what you want to cook. You could cook meat or fish or groundnut sauce or mushroom sauce. Literally anything you know. I mean it goes with anything.
Katasi E. Kironde 08:04
But I think matooke is one of these...I don't know, one of these foods that just pairs well, with so many different flavours. You can have it with a meat...like matooke nyama which is literally matooke and meat...it's just like, divine because it just soaks up the sauce and I find it that it's best eaten with your hands like for for like...I'm not gonna make you use your hands Lucy! But just to soak up the last bit of gravy and because matooke doesn't have an overpowering taste. So it just blends well with everything. When I'm in Uganda I like to have it with offals. A lot of our sauces are blended with curry powder, a bit of Royco, which is just like the super mix, and tomatoes and fried onions. So like a bit of...yeah, bit of a curry sauce, really and again, this curry is symbolic of the South Asian influence. You can have matooke in so many different ways like Katogo which would be like a mash up or melange of beans, but you'd have it whole so you don't have to mash it. And that's the one I make the most because I don't have to, I don't have to sort of pound it. It's like peel, boil and then mix it up with your bean sauce.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 09:21
Bean sauce or groundnut sauce or meat, yeah.
Katasi E. Kironde 09:30
You just literally...so at an angle you just peel at an angle and then there's lots of sap so you've got to put oil in your hands. Yeah, they're really sappy. Let's take out the matooke. Well, we have shortcuts. So my mum's... mum taught me how to make it really but basically you put it in a pressure cooker, just to speed up the process after you've peeled it and then take it out the pressure cooker and then mash it with like your regular potato masher. And then...this part is quite intricate...do you want to explain?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 10:05
So this is what we do can you see?
Lucy Dearlove 10:06
I'm just going to take a photo!
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 10:10
She wants to take a photo! So what you do, once you've done, you've mashed it, you use a foil, and you put it in a foil paper and wrap it up. You get a casserole dish, and you get like a kitchen cloth. And you wet it and wring the water out.
Lucy Dearlove 10:33
OK, so inside here...under the....this is the dish cloth you describe?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 10:37
Yeah, this is the dish cloth. And so you just do it like this. And sit that kitchen cloth in the casserole dish. Then you take your parcel of matooke in foil and put it inside. Wrap it up. So it keeps it moist.
Lucy Dearlove 10:53
Yeah. So kind of like like the banana leaves.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 10:56
Yeah, this is sort of imitating the original sort of thing. And then
Lucy Dearlove 11:03
Oh wow, okay,
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 11:04
Yeah. If you've got a cover for the casserole dish, you cover it, and you just stick it in the oven. You know, at a very low heat.
Katasi E. Kironde 11:14
I hope this is warm enough. I'll just take some out for you. So we've got the groundnut sauce. And we'll put some fish in there. Because traditionally, you put some fish in or you could put mushrooms.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 11:35
So what we doto improvise here because we can't get the dry fish we get from home. We use mackerel. Smoked mackerel, yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 11:43
Yeah. And that's a similar...a similar flavour?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 11:46
Yeah. As long as it's dried fish, yeah.
Katasi E. Kironde 11:49
Yeah. You can get dry fish in Shepherds Bush, but it'll be...
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 11:53
You have to soak it. And sometimes it's hard. And all that. Though if we went...if we were bothered to go to East London, we can get the fresh fish. Tilapia from Uganda.
Katasi E. Kironde 12:05
Is that...they're just spring greens aren't they?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 12:07
No, no, that is spinach
Katasi E. Kironde 12:09
Oh, spinach. But again, we have so much vegetation in Uganda. That you...
Lucy Dearlove 12:14
So lots of greens?
Katasi E. Kironde 12:15
Yeah, exactly.
Lucy Dearlove 12:17
So I think a bit of this and then live in get it in?
Katasi E. Kironde 12:20
Yeah, exactly. Yes, precisely.
Lucy Dearlove 12:24
Mm hmm. Okay, yeah. I see what you mean about the like how savoury it is. Yeah. Because it's weird, like, even though you've been saying that it's kind of hard to get your head around.
Katasi E. Kironde 12:39
A none...a savoury banana.
Lucy Dearlove 12:40
A completely savoury banana.
Katasi E. Kironde 12:41
Yeah. But you know, when I went to Guadeloupe to see one of my friends...they also...obviously, in the Caribbean they have a green banana. And when I came back, I was adamant that it was the same and then actually I realised it wasn't because when I tried to boil it down and mash it it's a completely different variety that they have.
Lucy Dearlove 13:00
Okay, it looks really similar?
Katasi E. Kironde 13:02
It looks a little bit similar and in fact, I think ours are fatter, have more water content.
Lucy Dearlove 13:08
Yeah, cos the the texture of it is so sturdy. Like you wouldn't think that something in the banana family could keep that much structure when it's cooked. Because bananas when you cook them they just like dissolve.
Katasi E. Kironde 13:20
Exactly.
Lucy Dearlove 13:22
And even plantain that is very soft. Yeah, but yeah, it's much more...yeah, much more like almost like, I don't know, like polenta or something. Well, yeah, very structural.
Katasi E. Kironde 13:35
Polenta's a good comparison.
Lucy Dearlove 13:38
This is really good with the fish as well.
Katasi E. Kironde 13:41
Nice!
Lucy Dearlove 13:43
So is this something that you would eat a lot?
Katasi E. Kironde 13:47
Because of that process, you know, this whole pounding process sometimes we would just make...I would leave it whole and just have it as katogo. My mum says when she when she's back in Uganda, that's all she eats, matooke. Just matooke.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 13:59
I don't eat anything else. Somebody gives me rice, I think they are...
Katasi E. Kironde 14:06
Not interested.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 14:07
Because when...the last time I went home in general I went home, I was in Uganda in January and my brother was from the United States was at home and it was a lot of us at the house. So like it would have cassava and we'll have our different yams and pumpkin and, and you name it and ugali and all that you know for dinner. And then you know they're asking me, Elizabeth, what would you like? Matooke. And they will say, aren't you having any cassava? No. Aren't you having pumpkin? No, Aren't you having rice? No.
Lucy Dearlove 14:43
You can get those anywhere!
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 14:44
Yeah. Actually, my mother had a short cut.
Lucy Dearlove 14:51
An original short cut.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 14:52
Yeah, I mean, she had so many children she had to cut out what she could cut. So like instead of going into the elaborate thing of putting you know, the banana stalk in the saucepan and all that... what she used to do to is just get a saucepan, put water in the saucepan, put a banana leaf in. Peel the matooke, wash them, throw them in the saucepan, wrap the matooke okay, with the banana leaf without using the banana fibers, you know?
Lucy Dearlove 15:18
Okay, yeah.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 15:19
And just cover it and boil it. And when it's finished, she'll just use the same banana leaf that she...that she put in originally and just use that to mash the matooke. Okay, okay. Yeah, that's it. That was... that is the easiest way.
Katasi E. Kironde 15:36
Yeah. And I think that...like my generation, people are not living in the sort of same housing that can afford them to have an outdoor space where you can do all of this and put it on the stove, or the charcoal stove. So people are adapting. And I remember in the 00s...like in the 00s somebody came up with Tooke powder, which was meant to be instant matooke powder, you know? Yeah. But for special occasions, you know, you hire somebody or you go out and you make the more elaborate one.
Lucy Dearlove 16:08
How did the Tooke powder go down?
Katasi E. Kironde 16:11
I tried it, it wasn't the same. You can't cheat everything.
Lucy Dearlove 16:14
It's like instant mash, it's never gonna be...
Katasi E. Kironde 16:17
Yeah, or microwave oats. It's not the same.
Lucy Dearlove 16:22
Sometimes the shortcut is okay. Sometimes you've just got to you've got to do the whole thing.
Katasi E. Kironde 16:27
One of the stories that my mother tells me is about posho, the cornmeal that you turn into...you add water to and you pound it. Like the polenta, but like the East African one? Was it during the war mum?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 16:40
No, no, there wasn't during the war. It was a famine when, when I was a little girl, and there was no matooke. You know, so the Buganda started to eat ugali from Kenya. And they also learned how to use maize to make the cornmeal. So the Buganda themselves had this concept in their head that everything must be wrapped in a banana leaf. I'm not kidding! My sister does it and I really, I mean, I haven't told her, I just look at her. I think she's crazy. My mother does it as well. So they they prepare the cornmeal...like everybody like the Kenyans and the Nigerians and the other African people add water and stir stir. They just put the hot water on, stir it, cook it and serve with it. But what the Buganda did...to them their concept of food without it being wrapped in a banana leaf was something else so they started preparing this thing and wrapping it in a banana leaf and going through the whole process as you would prepare the matooke.
Lucy Dearlove 17:56
Oh wow!
Katasi E. Kironde 17:59
Almost reminiscing what they were missing, you know?
Lucy Dearlove 18:01
Yeah, like the ritual of preparing it
Katasi E. Kironde 18:03
Yes, yeah.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 18:04
But now it's become tradition because at my sister's house, she prepared, they prepare matooke and they prepare this ugali thing wrapped in banana leaf. And I said to her, what is this? Because I don't like it, I don't like it wrapped in banana leaf. I like it the way you just prepare it on the fire and serve it. And they think...when I say I don't want to I don't want to eat that they think I'm crazy!
Katasi E. Kironde 18:32
But even then, the matooke came back but people continued with this elaborate process and it's just not necessary. I don't...because you know how the leaves when like they steam into the posho and it just takes from a slightly different texture or like taste. I just don't think it's necessary and it's like, ugali, posho or whatever you want to call it is like our pasta, it's like instant. Why must I complicate it?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 18:56
And then you have the green, the green from the leaves
Katasi E. Kironde 19:00
Yeah. And then it's no longer white.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 19:02
Yeah. And no longer white
Katasi E. Kironde 19:06
It's one of my favorite stories my mum tells.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 19:10
And at one time, it was frowned upon for anybody to eat ugali.
Lucy Dearlove 19:15
Oh really!
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 19:15
Oh yeah, dogs' food. Yeah but that famine taught them something!
Katasi E. Kironde 19:21
Yeah but literally like that's what people would give their dogs Oh, yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 19:27
But it's so funny, that something that came out of necessity, like that method of preparation that people still do it. Yeah, that's so interesting.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 19:34
Yeah. Incredible. Because I remember my mother, even if they were not getting...no guests or visitors coming, she would prepare dinner by say like three o'clock. The dinner would be on the fire already. And she would just put chunks of wood, you know, firewood to keep the food warm, and steam it for a longer period. And funny enough, if you've eaten matooke that has been steamed...resteamed, it tastes quite different compared to when you just boil and serve.
Lucy Dearlove 20:13
What's the difference?
Katasi E. Kironde 20:15
It's a bit hard, harder, isn't it? It's a bit tougher.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 20:18
Yeah, it's hard. Funnily enough, when you...when it's been steamed, and you've used the banana leaves, it actually doesn't look yellow. It goes a bit orangey, or something like that, and softer. You know?
Katasi E. Kironde 20:34
And I also think the way that it served like and Uganda we'll say "okujjula", you know, to serve. It...that's also a very elaborate process. You know, it's not something like, oh, just put this on. And, you know, remember, there's always layers. Yeah, so people will sit down on like, one of....like my grandmother's kitchen, one of those those mats in the corner, the omukeeka, you'd lay that out. And there's actually an event, isn't it mummy?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 20:58
Yeah. Oh, god, it's an event. Yeah. I mean, so like, traditionally, we didn't use tables, we all sat down. You know, so like, they'll bring that big parcel of food, you're gonna, you know, and put it in the middle somewhere, you know, you have, you have papyrus mats, you know. Yeah, so every house had that. It's a more like a table, you know, but they used to put it on the floor
Katasi E. Kironde 21:28
Like a runner.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 21:29
Like a runner runner, and everybody would sit round this big meal. Before the Europeans came, and before we got plates, they used to use those banana parcels I told you. So everybody's like, if you, if it was 10 of you in the household, they will make 10 little parcels. They put it on the food, you know, within the the steaming process, they put it in there. So when the food was ready, the vegetables were ready. So when you took...when you were ready to serve, you take your little parcels of meat or groundnut sauce or whatever, something and put them in a basket and put it outside. And then you take your big parcel and put it in the middle of this big sort of...this one. And then everybody will sit around. And then you'll find that the mother or the adults would serve the food. They didn't expose the whole thing, you open half of it. And during the process while they were preparing, they used to cut little banana sort of squares. Which were used as spoons. So you, you take it from the big parcel, you fold it and you sort of use that to take off the
Lucy Dearlove 22:47
Like a scoop?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 22:48
Yeah, scoop. And just give it to everybody who is who is sitting around. And then the bus, you know, the little parcels you've made of like vegetables, or whatever you're eating with the food. You give each person one of those. One time I had a party in Uganda. And I think we had about...we had a lot of guests with it. I think we had about 200 guests, but each guests got one of those Luwombos. Everybody got one. Yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 23:24
So how long would that have taken to prepare 200?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 23:27
What do you do...you hire people!
Katasi E. Kironde 23:33
Yeah, but even now at my grandma's house, if we have like a Sunday meal...you know, again, it will be served when everyone's gathered. Yeah, it's not, you know, help yourself and then wait for next person. We just honour the process I think.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 23:51
The beauty about it was cos there's people who don't eat meat, there are people who don't eat groundnut sauce, there are people who don't eat that. So you would make those parcels according to the preferences of the family. So like if somebody didn't eat meat, you prepare groundnut sauce or you prepare something else and so and they will mark the parcels and say this is for Katasi because she doesn't eat meat. So this is her fish and this is so and so's groundnut. And this...Yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 24:20
How would they...how would they mark them, would they just write on them?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 24:23
No, they use the banana...
Katasi E. Kironde 24:25
The fibre
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 24:25
The fibre...and when they tie it around to make a parcel because they make a parcel. They may put a knot or three knot on it on one of the, the ties to make sure that two is Katasi's groundnut sauce, yeah. Three is on so and so's you know fish and wherever.
Katasi E. Kironde 24:47
Culturally in Buganda culture, if somebody finds you eating, they don't...they don't have to greet them. You can literally just...you don't greet people eating. Okay, you know?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 24:57
Yeah. And then you don't..when you're during meal time. You're not supposed to be chit chatting. You know, it's like, well, like the English don't talk at the table. Don't speak during a meal.
Lucy Dearlove 25:08
But for a nicer reason?
Katasi E. Kironde 25:10
For a nicer reason, yeah. I think I really got into cooking when I moved back to Uganda after uni. My dad's...he's a chef, and he writes about food. So he was doing classes. And I said, Oh, can I can I join in? And actually, the times I'd spend with him when I was there, he'd...he'd be doing reviews, so he might take my siblings and I so I got an interest in it. And then when I did the classes with him, I think that's when it really took off for me...like not took off, but I really got into it. And I liked experimenting. And when I moved to Uganda at that point, I was vegetarian.
Lucy Dearlove 25:52
Ah, okay,
Katasi E. Kironde 25:53
Which was interesting because one of my uncle, one of my late uncles would say, you know, we can get you medicine for that. We can get you medicine. I'm like, no, no, I'm not allergic to meat. I'm just choosing not to. And what's ironic is that traditionally, Buganda, we didn't eat meat in the way that we do now, as much as we did you know, it was a Sunday...I remember growing up it being a Sunday affair, you know, once a week, you ate what you...I don't want to say you ate what you caught but, you know, your chicken...the chicken was slaughtered there, it wasn't as mass produced. So it was funny that people made such a big deal about me being vegetarian. Every individual belongs to a certain clan or Totem and it's patriarchal in the sense that you follow the man's line. It's how the Kingdom, the Buganda kingdom is divided. Folk tales and traditions around my totem or my clan, which is grasshoppers. I'm not to eat it, because if I do, then I might lose my blessings. Or I might get an adverse reaction to eating grasshoppers, which are a massive delicacy.
Lucy Dearlove 27:16
Wow. Okay.
Katasi E. Kironde 27:17
In Uganda. And then everyone has...people have names that are specific. So you've got grasshopper names. My mum's a monkey. So she's got like, monkey, a monkey name. But yeah. So when you meet, someone they'll tell you their name. If they have a name that you sort of know about your brothers have, you couldn't possibly ever have a relationship with them, because somewhere down the line, you are related. So it's quite sophisticated. And also it's said that the King who introduced them was also trying to preserve the animals because then you wouldn't consume your animal.
Lucy Dearlove 27:51
Right, right.
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 27:52
One time I met this wonderful guy. And his name was Kabango. So I came home and I asked my mother, asked my aunt. I said, this guy is so lovely. His name is Kabango. He said, What? I said his name is Kabango. Can I go out with him? They said, No, you cannot. You are not allowed.
Lucy Dearlove 28:18
And they knew straightaway?
Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama 28:19
Yeah.
Lucy Dearlove 28:28
Lecker is hosted and produced by me, Lucy Dearlove. Thanks so much to Katasi E. Kironde and Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama, my guests on this episode. Katasi's written for outlets like Peckham Peculiar and Black Ballad. And she was also a co host on the Unsavoury Ethnic Types podcast, who did a great episode about Ugandan food that I really recommend listening to, I'll link to in the show notes. So you can also listen. Katasi also guest curated a recent issue of Fair Magazine, which is a magazine that focuses each issue on a particular city, the one Katasi did was all about Kampala. I just checked, and it's actually currently reduced on the Fare website, so you can still buy a copy for an even cheaper price. I'll also link to that in the show notes. I love this magazine. I learned so much from it, Katasi did an amazing job. The design of the photography is so beautiful, highly recommended. Katasi actually sent me a copy of this when it first came out. And that's what planted the seed for the idea for this episode. We actually talked a bit more about the magazine and a couple of specific pieces in it because there's some really interesting ideas there. And those bits of the conversation that I had with Katasi are going to be available on the Patreon bonus episode of the podcast which comes out monthly on the Patreon page. You can get access to those by signing up for three pound a month at patreon.com/leckerpodcast. Other ways you can support Lecker? Tell your friends, please spread the word...rate and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Buy merch from the Lecker Big Cartel site, but generally just enjoy and appreciate the podcast and share it if you have, that means the world to me. All the music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. And thanks as always to Ben McDonald, who did a beautiful illustration of Katasi and her mum for this episode. You can see that on the Lecker Instagram and Twitter @leckerpodcast. I'll be back in your podcast feeds next month. Thanks for listening.