Kenyan cooking is straightforward, filling and built on maize, beans and meat, with a completely separate coastal tradition shaped by Indian Ocean trade. Very little of the inland food is spicy; almost all of the coastal food is aromatic.
Nyama choma
Grilled meat is the closest thing Kenya has to a national dish and to a national pastime. Goat and beef are bought by the kilo at a butchery, grilled over charcoal, chopped on a wooden board and eaten with the fingers alongside kachumbari, a raw salad of tomato, red onion, coriander and chilli. It is done at weekends, in groups, over several hours, with beer.
Ugali and greens
Ugali is stiff maize meal, cooked until it can be pinched and used to scoop. The standard accompaniment is sukuma wiki, collard greens fried with onion and tomato, whose name translates as push the week — the cheap dish that stretches a household budget to payday. Add a beef or fish stew and that is what most of the country eats.
Other staples
Githeri is boiled maize and beans, a Kikuyu dish that has become a national one. Mukimo mashes potato, maize, beans and pumpkin leaves into a green purée. Irio is a related mash. Matoke, cooked green banana, comes from the west. Chapati arrived with Indian railway workers and is now completely Kenyan, as is mandazi, a lightly sweet fried dough eaten at breakfast with chai.
The coast
Swahili cooking uses coconut milk, tamarind, cardamom and cloves. Pilau is rice cooked in spiced stock; biryani is layered and richer. Wali wa nazi is coconut rice. Samaki wa kupaka is fish grilled and finished in a coconut sauce. Viazi karai, deep-fried spiced potatoes, and mishkaki skewers are the street food of Mombasa and Lamu.
Drink
Chai is boiled with milk and sugar and often with ginger; ordering tea without milk requires being specific. Kenya grows some of the best arabica in the world on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, and Nairobi now has a serious specialty coffee scene. Tusker is the national lager. Fresh sugarcane juice and passion fruit juice are everywhere.
Practical notes
A plate of ugali with stew in a local canteen costs a few hundred shillings. Lunch is the main meal. Vegetarians manage easily inland thanks to githeri, beans and greens, and very easily on the coast.