When Kenyans go out, they go for the standard blow-out feast, which is a huge pile of nyama choma (roast meat). You can order your meat of choice; goat, beef, mutton or chicken, and the way you prefer to eat it, either cooked, fried or roasted.

If you are a vegetarian, don’t worry. Kenya recipes offer a lot to choose from. Besides an abundance of delicious assortments of fruit, there are numerous dishes to decide on.

The true staples of Kenya diet are Ugali and sukuma wiki. Ugali is maize meal cooked into a thick porridge until it sets hard, then served up in flat slabs. Its incredibly stodgy and tends to sit in the stomach like a brick, but most Kenyan swear by it. It will fill you up after a long day’s safari but it won’t set your taste buds atingle. Many Kenyan dishes are accompanied by sukuma wiki-braised or stewed spinach.

Sukuma wiki in Swahili means literally ’stretch the week’, the implication being that they are so cheap they allow the householder to stretch the budget until the next weekly pay cheques. Despite its ubiquity, a dish of well-cooked sukuma wiki with tomatoes, stock and capsicum makes a refreshing change from the preponderance of meat in other recipes.

Another noteworthy staple, especially in the central highlands is irio (kienyeji in Swahili), made from mashed greens, potatoes and boiled corn or beans. Also common is mukimo, a kind of hash made from sweet potatoes, corn, beans and plantains. Vegetarians can find githeri- a mix of beans and corn-in most local eateries.

But Kenyan food is all about meat. Kenyans are enthusiastic carnivores; their recognized national dish is nyama choma (barbecued meat) and most other dishes are based around stewed meat, accompanied by a generous portion of carbohydrates, beef, goat and mutton are the most common, and they tend to be pretty tough. Carbohydrates come in five major forms; Ugali, potatoes, rice chapatti and Matoke. The chapatti is identical to its Indian predecessor. Matoke is mashed green plantains, which when well prepared can taste like buttery, lightly whipped mashed potato.

Meat-free pasta dishes, omelet’s, vegetables and potatoes. Especially the Kikuyu diet has an amazing array of mouth-watering, fantastic vegetarian dishes, topped at the end of a meal with some fresh fruit salad.

We found to our dismay that there were no restaurants serving dishes native to Kenya. Nor were there cookbooks to which we could refer. We finally found one cookbook called Kenya Kitchen, but in the main the recipes were of English and American dishes. We did find one recipe, which we have included here, for Samosas, the little three-cornered pastries filled with meats.

We discovered that the really delicious cooking of Kenya is being done by the Kikuyu, the Abaluhya, and the Luo tribes. We visited with them and were delighted with their wonderful dishes. The most important dish of the Kikuyu is Irio, a seasoned puree of peas, corn, and potatoes. The M'chuzi wa kuku and the M'baazi are wonderful dishes. Kariokor is a delicious way to barbecue meat.