Sigiri – The Traditional Ugandan Stove
The first time my wife took me to her place, I was amazed to see her maid cooking our lunch on a small clay pot on the floor. As she fanned the flames with a plastic plate, a steel silver bowl filled with something good smelling emitted large puffs of smoke. She quickly cast the dish aside and placed another steel silver bowl on top of the clay pot. The second dish smelled just as good as the first. My stomach grumbled with curiosity as we sat in the sitting room watching the equivalent of MTV, back home, only Ugandan style - the song was Seen Don by Ronald Alimpo.
About an hour later, the maid brought us lunch: Kikomandu – (pronounced Chi-ko-man-du) flavored red beans covered in white rice with slices of Chapati. I hungrily ingested my bowl astounded by the flavors smacking my taste buds, soothing my tongue pushing each bite towards the back of my throat. I couldn’t fathom how such a primitive looking cooking utensil could create such a tasty meal.
After that encounter, time moved on as it always does, and I simply forgot about it. Until two weeks ago.
“Honey, the cooker broke. I’m buying a new one.” My wife wanted the maid to cook less on the stove to save on propane and instead switch to charcoal cooking.
I sat up in confusion. “The stove I bought last year broke?” She looked back at me with the same confusion.
“No. My love. Not the stove. The cooker. The little one.”
“How much are they?”
“6,000.” That’s $1.65 in USD.
“What do you call it in Luganda, my love?”
“Sigiri.”
“Ah. Sigiri.” I quickly wrote the word down in my iphone. Now I had a name for it.
My memories took me back to that day of the Kikomandu. That small clay pot on the floor.
A few hours later, the maid came into our apartment and went straight to the back patio. In her hands was a black bag that she held carefully with two hands. My curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to see what the new cooker looked like. I searched the back patio. Nothing. I looked in the storage room where we keep the potatoes, matooke, banana leaves and other things. Nothing. Then I turned around to leave when my toe stumped something.
There it was. The Sigiri.
You know those scenes in Pulp Fiction where we’re never told what’s in Marsellus Wallace’s suitcase (known as a macguffin)? Every time it’s opened this bright flashlight like aura emanates. Or when Charlie Murphy tells us about his first-time meeting Rick James and the camera cuts from Charlie to Rick – played by Dave Chapelle – and we see him glowing with the same aura? That’s exactly what I saw.
The Sigiri glowed in this bright orange color that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. I felt like a baby in a candy store. It was clean. Not a trace of black ash. A virgin. Inside was made of white clay with an orange border circling it. The outer part was made of tin with a handle and three wires used to hold a pot while it cooks.
When I picked it up, the nine perfectly rounded holes inside of it appeared to smile at me. It smelled fresh like the Mexican clay water jugs my Grandmother used to have in her kitchen. Something inside of me wanted to throw some charcoal on it and cook some red beans. Something else inside of me told me that would be a bad idea.
Later that day, the maid cooked us some red beans and rice for dinner. The taste was just like I remembered. Minus the Chapati.