The glorious, ubiquitous chapati. I don't think there is a food more loved by visitors to Uganda, except for maybe the rolex. My first time in Uganda I ate these at least every other day; they were amazing and cheap and, how did street vendors manage to roll out such deliciousness? While in Mukono and Kabale I had my favorite chapati vendors to visit, a chapati is a chapati anywhere you go (in Uganda, anyway). Sometimes you'd arrive when a stack was already finished, waiting for customers, but the best times were when the vendors were just setting up, rolling out balls of dough, rolling them flat, then cooking them with an obnoxious amount of oil on a flat frying pan heated to scorching hot over a blazing charcoal brazier. I imagined they must be difficult to make, but luckily my friend's host mother, Doreen, showed us one night that they are the easiest breads to make, dispelling the chapati mystery forever. This was confirmed when, a year later, I was in Uganda again and my coworker, Clement, showed me and a fellow volunteer how he makes chapatis - exactly the same way as Doreen, albeit with a bit more oil. Suffice it to say I am presently a chapati-making fool.
