Moshi, Tanzania: Traditional Cooking Class with Local Family

Learn to cook traditional Tanzanian dishes with a local family in Moshi. Visit the local market with your hosts and learn about the ingredients. Enjoy your meal with your hosts.
Experience the flavors of Tanzania with a meal and cooking class in a local home. Learn to make Ugali, a traditional corn meal dish, and enjoy a meal with the family. Take a market tour to buy ingredients for your cooking class.

Start your tour in Tanzania with an experience in Shida’s village of traditional mud houses. This will give you a better sense of the local food, culture, and way of life. Enjoy your meal outside on small benches with the entire family.

Try local fruits like mango and avocado, uji, a local porridge made from a mix of millet, corn, peanuts, and wheat, served hot in a teacup with a pinch of sugar, mtori, a beef and green banana stew, and rice with spiced beans. Some of these dishes are cooked in coconut milk and simmered over a wood fire, giving them a very distinct and delicious flavor.

After your meal, be served kashata and kawaha, Tanzanian peanut brittle and coffee. This ritual of eating a small piece of peanut brittle and drinking a small cup of coffee usually takes place in town as the men are leaving their shops to go home. End your experience by sharing Shida’s local brew that is enjoyed sitting in a mud hut with friends and family.

In your 2-hour hands-on cooking class, help Shida to prepare fresh coconut milk using a traditional tool called 'buzi', a small wooden seat with a sharp grinder at the end that is used to shave the coconut meat. The coconut milk is used to prepare the vegetables and stew dishes.

Then, learn to make ugali, a traditional corn meal dish that is served with sauteed vegetables. Making Ugali is an art, and is simple but labor-intensive, a real treat to learn.

Take a market tour with William, who will take you to the main market, where you will be introduced to locally grown fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Learn more about the ingredients on sale and how it is used in the traditional cooking process, while you walk around the market area with your hosts. Stop at some of their favorite vendor shops to buy ingredients for your cooking class. Then walk back or take a tuk tuk from the market to Shida's home, which is about 20 minutes away.

To guarantee availability book as soon as possible. Early booking is worth consideration especially if you planning the trip during high season like public holidays or weekends.

This excursion you can cancel with no cost up to 24 hours before the start of the trip. If you cancel it after 24 hours or not show up on the excursion you will still be charged the full price of the activity. Being late on pick-up or departure will be considered as not showing up.