Burundian Cuisine

For all the evils of colonialism that survive to this day in Africa, we seem to have found at least one positive byproduct in Burundi – its cuisine. In Tanzania, ruled first by the Germans and then the British, it is impossible to get a good Western meal. Great Indian food is everywhere but it gets old after a few months. Burundi, however, was placed under Belgian rule after the German defeat in WWI, and the legacy of French-Belgian cooking can still be tasted, especially in Bujumbura.

After Yusto helped us check into our downtown hotel, we consulted our guidebook and decided on an upscale restaurant on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. I ordered brochette (kebab – a national favorite) and Anette, fillet mignon. The beef, accompanied by perfect pommes frites, was tender and divinely flavored, our first taste of home in over a year. We could just as well have been sitting at a gourmet café on the banks of the Seine, and we shuddered to think of all the mouthfuls of chewy grey cow we’d stomached in our first year in Tanzania.

We stayed late in the warm night air digesting our meal and staring out over the black lake. When we went to leave, the two guards at the entrance of the restaurant were reluctant to walk down the road to find a cab for us. They confirmed what our guidebook said: Bujumbura nights are still ruled by thieves and armed gangs. Despite numerous police patrols, most Burundians don’t walk around after dark in the capital. Although the guards didn’t seem too happy about it, they agreed that they were less likely to get jumped than we were, so one of them kindly got us a cab.

When we woke up early the next morning, the smell of fresh bread was wafting through our open window. Just like in the old Looney Tunes cartoons, our noses pricked up and led us out of bed and downstairs towards the smell. Sure enough, local hot spot Boulangerie Trianon was right next door, and we sat down in a cozy cafeteria filled with Burundian men starting off their morning as they always do: with a personal pitcher of local coffee, fresh croissants, and omelettes a foot in diameter.

It was as if we had woken up in Heaven. Our breakfast for the past year has been terrible instant coffee and Corn Flakes, the only cereal available in Iringa. With gusto we tucked into our chocolate croissants and enormous omelettes filled with cheese, onions, and real bacon! Anette was thrilled that the fresh bread almost equaled Norwegian standards; quite a compliment considering that even the specialty bakeries in Berkeley didn’t measure up. We took our sweet time savoring the aroma and taste of the strong coffee, and walked out into the early morning with happy stomachs.

The only thing lacking at breakfast was a local newspaper. In Tanzania, the media, while not 100% free, is nonetheless prolific: there are dozens of newspapers in Swahili for sale on every street corner in every town. Most urban Tanzanians, especially men, read the papers every day. In Bujumbura, though, newspapers are nowhere to be seen. The lack of local media (in French or Kirundi) is certainly a consequence of the war - as with other industries, publishing is some 20 years behind the rest of East Africa. We finally found a deli that sold a couple of dailies, but it wasn’t the newspapers that we’ll remember...

The first thing you see as you walk into this corner store deli are two huge refrigerated glass cases containing an incredible selection of meats and cheeses, and shelves lined with mouth-watering snacks and chocolates. Again, we’ve never seen anything like it in Tanzania, and it could have been Paris or Seville or Whole Foods Market, Anytown, USA. Much of the meat and cheese was imported from Europe, but Burundians have clearly developed a taste for the stuff. We visited the deli four times in two days, and each time we drank a cup of fresh local yogurt to refresh ourselves in the heat of the day.