![]() He describes their evolution from ramshackle vehicles covered in psychedelic paintings to ones decked out with plasma TVs that play hip-hop videos. ![]() There is his infatuation with matatus – small buses common in Kenya and other parts of east Africa. His love for African things and people sits alongside his anger at the elites who exploit themĪ love for the basic infrastructure of African living is evident throughout. To him “the best cuisine that we have remains in villages and at townhall weddings and taxi ranks”. In the essay Food Slut, between long detailed recipes, Wainaina recalls the foods he ate as a child – the daily fare of plantains, as well as the urban innovations such as kebabs with crushed nuts and vetkoek (fried bread) with coconut. In adulthood, he seeks to rediscover the foods he grew up with, since abandoned and excluded by vendors who think African food is not “upmarket” enough. ![]() In South Africa, where he spent a decade failing to get a good degree or buy a “sixteen valve car”, he ran a food stall and then a catering business. What really inspired and moved him were those authentic things that snobbery and western taste sneered at or overlooked. ![]() Introduced by Wainaina’s friend Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, it shows us how deeply immersed the author was not just in Africa but in Africanness. This collection of his writing – the first to be published since he died – makes it difficult not to feel the scale of the loss. ![]()
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