Notes on Goats

 

"I have to order the entrée?!" I asked Isabella, the glow from the lantern on the table no doubt reflected eerily on my wide eyeballs, "but I can't even PRONOUNCE 'goat pilau.'"

 



 

Pilau and Passionfruit Juice
(I don't think either of us used
the yogurt sauce pictured here.)

A group of us were sitting around a couple of umbrella-shrouded tables pushed together on a balcony overlooking Lake Victoria, squinting at the menus before us. The family that had been staying with us this week took us out here to a restaurant in Entebbe before they left earlier this week, so that night lent me my first opportunity to order goat for dinner. Only one problem existed: I couldn't pronounce the dish that Isabella and I were going to be splitting! 

The mysterious pilau turned out to be a plate of "fragrant rice" featuring several pieces of roast beef-like meat. Ironically, because the spice--tasty though it was--covered up any distinctly "goat-like" flavour in the meat, I still have no idea what goat actually tastes like!

 

But I  have learned..

 

- That the Lugandan word for goat is "embuzi" (em-BOO-zee)

- That goat skin is great for making everything from shoes and wallets to knife sheaths and musical  instruments--all of which you can buy at your local craft market

-That goats can run down staircases. I know I was surprised!