Mama Susan's Eggplant Salad

The ladies that I met in East Africa are beautiful, hard-working women. Time and again I was welcome  to join them in their cooking adventures. There was a lot of delight and laughter as they helped this overly enthusiastic white woman hold a knife, pluck a chicken or stir a stew through watering eyes over a smokey, charcoal fire. 

Although cooking was fascinating to me, Uganda is not known for her amazing food.  

(have you ever seen a Ugandan restaurant outside of Uganda?)

Mama Susan (pictured below) is a fantastic cook and can make the mundane marvelous.  

One day she let me help make Eggplant Salad.  It was super yummy, so I jotted down the ingredients, compared notes with Mama before I left the country and recreated it at home for our Community Group this month.  Bryan says it reminds him of an ethnic, potato salad.  

Nothing about this salad is exact, but it's a great deal of fun if you'd like to give it a whirl

INGREDIENTS:

- 7 potatoes peeled, diced and fried

- 3 eggplant peeled, deseeded, cooked & pureed

- Half a red onion finely diced (and smash a couple cloves of garlic while you're at it)

- 4-5 tomatoes cut into chunks

- 2-3 Tablespoons of ground peanuts 
(our Ugandan friends call these "G-nuts"- short for groundnuts, you know, 'cause they grow in the ground!)

- 1 lemon juiced (plus or minus a little)

- 2-5 Tablespoons of "magic dust."  This happy seasoning has ground cumin seeds, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamoms & cloves. Oh, and it's simply fabulous!

Mix everything together and prepare for a dreadful looking, but lovely tasting dish.  I took this photo after we had dipped into it several times.  It's super yummy after it sits for a couple of days and all the flavors do exciting things together. 

John Z. really wishes that I'd forget the salad and learn how to make chapati. 

Um, maybe during our next trip.

Do you have time for a short video? I pulled together a couple of my documented food preparation experiences in Uganda- good memories!

If you're receiving this in your inbox, please click here to see the video.

We are actually quite similar...

This month three Mains travelled to Adjumani, UGANDA to meet a treasure of a boy named Sebur.  Sebur is 11-years old and he loves soccer, the color green, fish and posho.  He is an exceptional artist and a kind, compassionate and fun-loving boy.  Like the other children in the home, Sebur is an extremely hard worker. Like my own 11-year old, sometimes he finds a creative hiding spot and takes refuge from both work and people.  He jumps at the chance to play with the youngest member of the children's home- the ever-adorable baby Joshua.  Although reserved, Sebur is friendly and eager to try something new. 

(India, John Z. & Josiah with Sebur. Photo by Will Campbell)

We have reflected on how VERY different our lives in America are from Sebur's life in Uganda.  And yet there are some very significant similarities that bond us deeply together. 

Here are some of the things that we found to be the same for Sebur in Uganda and the Main family in America. 

The human spirit and the God who created and sustains remain the same across cultures. We saw this lived out time and again.  

People are people and God is ever-present-- In our homeland and in Sebur's. 

When the contrast is stark...

This month we got to meet our friend Sebur.  For real.  In person.  Like, we played and laughed and sang and danced and drove and ate and cried and worshipped and crafted and sat and read and just lived together.  It was fantastic.

Have we told you yet that we think Sebur is amazing?  We do and he is.  It was an absolute gift to get to do a bit of life with him.  

During our short visit, the boys and I discovered that there are a lot of differences between the lives that we live and the one that he lives in northern Uganda.  Understandably, our visit was short and our vision is limited- we only saw a piece of a very complex and incredibly beautiful land and culture.

With that in mind, we started brainstorming and came up with some obvious differences...

(we didn't forget the photo- there really isn't much in the way of dessert for Sebur)

It's astounding how different our lives are...and yet. And yet there are some very significant similarities that bond us deeply together.

I'll share those in our next post...