With the rain thrumming down outside, Outer Space Restaurant appears to have more in common with a café in the East End of London than it does with palmy, balmy Zanzibar. Customers scurry across the road through the drizzle, dishdashas hoisted up to avoid the puddles, towards the dry beacon that is Outer Space. It is a damp January day in Ruwi and the spice island seems very far away �until one starts to eat.

Food for thought
Bananas and biryani

Outer Space Restaurant near Ridha Mosque serves Zanzibari food. The link between Oman and this small archipelago off the coast of East Africa is historical: Zanzibar was once part of Oman’s trading empire. In the 17th century it came under the influence of the sultans of Oman, and in 1840 the then sultan moved the seat of government from Muscat to Stone Town, Zanzibar’s capital. Oman and Zanzibar separated into two principalities 21 years later, and Zanzibar ultimately became a British protectorate until in 1964 it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania.

Given Oman’s centuries-old association with Zanzibar, it stands to reason that Omani cuisine should feature dishes that hail from the island. On offer at Outer Space are cassava, the starchy tuberous root of a tropical tree that is consumed all over Africa; matoke, which is made using green bananas; kachori, potato balls; and mandazi, sweet fried breads similar to doughnuts. All these delicacies are popular today in East Africa, as are other things on the menu, such as biryani, a Mughal introduction to Zanzibar that, like pilau and chapattis, probably arrived via traders from the Indian subcontinent. Zanzibari cuisine draws on a rich ragbag of influences. Coconuts, bananas and seafood are integral ingredients on account of the climate and the proximity of the sea; and spices such as cloves, which the island traded, also feature.
In Outer Space, Qasim Mahmood al Ajmi sits at a Formica table eating his Zanzibari luncheon. A teacher at a nearby school, he has eschewed the restaurant’s smaller savoury offerings, the kachori and other snacks, for special steamed chicken and chapatti, which he likes because it reminds him of the food his family cooks at home in the Batinah region.

Boiled bananas
Using local ingredients

Mohamed Abdulla Gharib al Awfy also enjoys Zanzibari cooking at home. Although he has lived in the sultanate since 1963, Mohamed was born on the archipelago �his great-grandfather, Gharib bin Ali bin Gharib al Awfy, moved from Oman to Zanzibar in 1804, stopping briefly en route in Mombasa, where he married. In Zanzibar Gharib became well respected, a writer and a father, but the al Awfys never severed links with Oman. In 1936, Mohamed’s father visited the family’s properties in Rustaq.

“The true foods of Zanzibar were bananas, cassava or tapioca, sweet yam and majimbe (big yams), which was called poor man’s food,�says Mohamed. These ingredients were prepared in a variety of ways: bananas might be boiled with coconut milk, fish, meat or chicken, or roasted and eaten sprinkled with salt and chilli. “Sweet yams are a very beautiful food boiled and cooked with sugar and coconut, and maybe vanilla; and with the introduction of Frigidaires it was stored cold and eaten as a dessert.�br>
The influence of Indian settlers on Zanzibari cooking is great �Mohamed recalls Indian-run stalls selling foods such as kachori (“a mixture of daal, potatoes, spice, lemon and pepper� and lemon or lime pickles. Zanzibar-born Sheikh Ali Nasser al Harthy, proprietor of Zanzibar Island Restaurant in Ghubrah, says that his favourite, pilau, is a famous food in Zanzibar, as is biryani. The islanders
did grow their own white rice, but according to Mohamed it was usually ground and made into porridge. This porridge would sustain the young al Awfy during the morning (although he and his friends also devoured windfall mangoes on their way to and from school).

In addition to rice, Zanzibaris traditionally cultivated red beans, which were often mixed with the rice porridge. This dish supported the local population during World War II. “There was scarcity of food then so the government compensated pupils with extra
porridge and beans,�says Mohamed. Pasta was another wartime addition to the local culinary repertoire: Italian ships docked in Mombasa brought with them macaroni and spaghetti.

Most cooking is enriched by a jumble of events and influences �the potato plant for example, which is native to South America and synonymous with Irish food, was probably introduced to Ireland by a Spanish seaman in the late 16th or 17th century. Zanzibari cuisine too is an aptly spicy stew of local produce and foreign dishes, a fusion of foods and traditions that continues to be enjoyed from Pemba to Muscat and beyond.