The cuisine of Rwanda is the local staples foods they farm for themselves and their families. The staple foods in Rwanda are bananas, plantains, pulses, sweet potatoes, beans and cassava. Meats are rare for the people of rural Rwanda and only get eaten a few times a month. Meals for the people Rwanda usually consist of; for breakfast, the sweet potatoes and porridge and for lunch/dinner, it is boiled beans, bananas, or sweet potatoes or cassava. Rwanda’s common drink is milk and refusing to drink milk that is being offered by a person from Rwanda is considered an insult. As you may know, the people are of Rwanda are made of many groups and there are the famous groups such as Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus and the Twa were the group of people who hunted and farm for their food and the Tutsis were pastoralists (rising of livestock) and consumed a lot of dairy products. I think this is why the cuisine of Rwanda came out the way it is today because these groups were highly influential on the traditions of Rwanda. They also still live in Rwanda today! Now the real question is how did these staples food come to Rwanda?
First, the potato came from Germany and Belgian when they colonize Rwanda. The potato, as you can tell form the meals, are very popular in Rwanda. Bananas were introduced by China and Indonesia. Beans were from Uganda between the 16 and 17th century. In the 1930, Belgians introduced the cassava which is the 3rd most consumed food after the bananas and sweet potatoes. It is interesting to see where these “staple” foods of Rwanda came from. This relates back to the Diaspora because may this occurrence is due to trades, colonization or even tourism!
Sources:
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=14944&a=9014&week=4
