Back of beyond

Zanzibar is where the waft of spices led our nomadic foodie, Mike Harrison, by his nose. An erstwhile Omani colony and off the coast of Tanzania, its food is a delectable blend of the two continents and a fitting way to end the author's series on cuisines of Islamic countries.

They say that the scent of cloves no longer hovers over the island like a gentle breeze, but on my first morning on Zanzibar, I could swear it was the aroma of the distinctive spice that wafted under my nose and awoke me from my reveries.

It was the very first month of the new millennium and I had arrived in Zanzibar late at night after a long-haul flight from the UK, checking into an elegant old hotel on the beach and collapsing straight into bed.

Waking up to the sound of the waves lapping against the sand, I skipped downstairs for my first early morning stroll on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Looking straight out from the wooden balcony, I was mesmerised by the beauty of the dazzling white sand and the azure sea.

To my left, two young boys were competing to do the most spectacular acrobatics, running towards the sea, gathering speed and momentum until they did a perfect series of 8-9 backward flips before losing control and plunging horizontally in a hilarious belly-and-face flop into the water, while their friends burst into laughter and applause.

They then lay face down in the water for a minute or so, savouring the theatrical moment, before emerging, faces dripping, with beaming smiles.

To my right, barely 100 metres away, there was a huge, rusty ocean tanker incongruously berthed right on the beach, and out of which was moving an ant-like army of muscled labourers, carrying large dusty sacks slung over their shoulders.

On approaching, the smell of spices was quite headily overpowering. It turned out that my hotel, snug on one of the prettiest beaches I had ever seen, was also right next door to the town's cargo offices, and I was witnessing the unloading of the clove ship from Zanzibar's sister island, Pemba.

It had indeed been the scent of cloves that had awoken me, but not quite in the romantic way that I had initially suspected.

For this culinary journey that started in Andalusia, it seems only fitting that the last article should focus on the Spice Island of Zanzibar. It signals the alphabetical end of the series and the journey, but it was nevertheless the beginning of the road for me as a writer.

In the winter of 1999, I had resigned from a high-powered job setting up language courses for refugees in Ireland, when I realised that it simply did not suit me.

Having lived in Albania, Iraq and Tajikistan through times of crisis, I was disappointed when it turned out that the skills required for the job were more to do with human resource and budget management than my knowledge of languages and different cultures.

Shocked by my decision to leave a well-paid job, a colleague asked what my plans were. 'I've absolutely no idea,' I replied, 'but what I would LIKE to do is nip off to Zanzibar, sit under a coconut tree on a beach and write a book.'

The words had slipped out casually, but on further reflection, there seemed to be nothing stopping me from making the dream a reality, apart from fear of the unknown! And so that was it. I had a plan!

The appeal of Zanzibar for me lay in its ability to have happily absorbed diverse cultures over the centuries.

Almost 2,000 years ago, the island's strategic location had made it a major trade route from the Roman Empire to the Indo-Chinese ports. By the 4th century AD, Bantu people had settled here, with Islam making its way in around the 7th century.

Arab and Persian emigrants fleeing their own war-torn countries were soon to settle and there was much prosperous trade to be made in gold, ebony, ivory and slaves. This prosperity continued until the time of the Portuguese.

While Columbus was discovering the New World in the last decade of the 15th century, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was dipping his toes into the sands of the tropical isle.

The Portuguese introduced cassava, cashews, pineapples and guava to the fertile land from their other African and American colonies and later, the Omanis continued the tradition of exploiting the lushness of the soil by importing cloves and other spices from Mauritius.

Such was the success of the Omani traders that the Sultanate's capital was moved from Muscat to Zanzibar in the 1840s, firmly establishing the solid connections which exist today between the island and Oman.

As mentioned earlier, the purpose behind my visit to Zanzibar was the hope that the fusion of ethnicities, architectures, foods and cultures would inspire me to write.

So, travelling lightly with nothing but a change of beach shorts, my laptop and enough dollars to hopefully last a few weeks, I arrived to a new life on the other side of the equator.

My initial intention had been to write a novel of high intrigue set under a glacier in the snow-capped mountains of Central Asia, of all places, the plot drawn from an earlier phase of my life working as a language consultant in Tajikistan for the Aga Khan Foundation.

Zanzibar was chosen simply to provide the inspiration, the tranquillity and the facility to allow the creative juices to flow. But after three days of splashing in the ocean, plucking mangoes from my hotel garden for breakfast, the muse was proving elusive.

Had I really resigned from a good job and travelled half-way around the world, only to find that I suffered from writer's block? I stared blankly at my photographs of the ice caps, flicked through my Tajikistan files and articles for inspiration, and thought of those freezing nights when my hand-washed clothes had frozen solid on the line by morning.

To encourage the creative juices, I decided to keep a little diary. Sitting on the steps of my back-street hotel in early morning, I soon became part of the local furniture, and the locals, scurrying about their ways, would stop for a chat.

I loved to observe the bustle of life, and was made to feel welcome. In fact, I had never felt so quickly welcome in a place before.

Suddenly, the diary took on the form of a vignette or snap shot of life in old Stone Town, and I found myself, like the novelist Peter Mayle, writing a sort of African 'Year in Provence' only this book would be called 'A few months in Mchambawimba Alley!' All thoughts of glaciers and ice-caps melted away under the African sun!

The more I settled into my new home, the more I sought out people's stories. The diary soon became a stream-of-consciousness novel of 70,000 words, and lots of local stories and characters made their way into it.

A mini tragedy occurred upon my later return to the UK when the book was lost in a hard-disk crash, but hey, the writer's block had been unblocked, and I have not looked back since!

At the same time, those creative juices needed some form of sustenance, and I began to seek out the eclectic flavours and multitude of gastronomic delights on offer.

Small popular snack bars run by Goans served delicious sambusas tinged with Indian spices, and topped off with local nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom.

Chutneys, pickles and curries, infused with ginger, coconut milk and lemon grass resulted in a delightful fusion, similar to the flavours of Malaysia and Sri Lanka, other countries of the Indian Ocean basin.

In the Pagoda Restaurant in old Stone Town, I met George Chen, the grandson of one of the island's earlier entrepreneurs.

The story goes that his grandparents and siblings had set sail on a steamer from the Chinese port of Guangzhou, with each sibling getting off at a different island in turn, in order to set up business - from the Maldives, to the Seychelles, Mauritius and Zanzibar.

George's grandmother was the first person to import a noodle-making machine to the island, and, after various unsuccessful strategies, which included offering brightly-coloured, dyed noodles for free to the locals, eventually managed to win them over to the tiny vermicelli noodles, which are now a must-have Iftar dish, eaten with coconut milk and nuts with relish - and known as tambi.

Like the Goan community, George was in the process of fusing authentic Chinese food with local ingredients and spices.

He offered me one of the house specialities - a huge mangrove crab, at least a foot wide - simmering in black bean sauce gently kissed by local cloves. One of the most delicious meals of my life.

But the real centre of gastronomic activity on the island is Forodhani Gardens, a lively little night market by the sea.

By day, tall, brightly-attired Masai from the mainland of Tanzania sell trinkets, wooden masks, and other carvings, while locals also sell an eclectic range of colourful batik prints and shirts (imported from Thailand, but no one tells …!), and calabash drums covered with animal skins.

By night the stalls transform into mini restaurants offering a veritable gastronomic delight.

On tables lit by lanterns, fireflies and some slightly more lethal insects dance around the light which illuminates all of the flavours of the sea and beyond: huge pink lobsters, smoked squid, grilled octopus, king prawns, as well as a huge variety of fish, not to mention 'Zanzibari pizza': a square omelette filled with spicy chunks of meat and a vegetable puree.

I took to eating each evening there with a friend, Issa, who would select a choice morsel of octopus at his favourite stall and get the vendor to pop it over some charcoal.

While waiting for our food to heat, we'd make our way over to the sugar cane vendor, who hacked away at a couple of long fronds and then fed them into an antiquated mangle which then churned out fresh, sweet sugar cane juice.

Collecting our plates of octopus, Issa would add a scoop of chips to his plate before dousing the whole thing in fiery chilli sauce!

We'd then find a spot on a park bench and savour our evening meal to the accompaniment of the sounds of Zanzibar: gentle, rhythmic drums played by young guys in another corner of the park; crickets chirping in the casuarina trees, and the tender breeze of the waves licking the shore a couple of metres below.

Another day found me in the local market, watching the vendors in their skull caps selling their wares from baskets made from palm fronds.

In the fish market we observed auctions of the local catch and picked up a few choice pieces of mahi-mahi, sword-fish and tuna. Then bought mountains of huge, bulbous yellow passion fruit, very unlike the shrivelled purple ones we get here in the Gulf.

Our shopping list was completed by the addition of cassava, plantains and limes, after which we took them back to Issa's Aunt Zeinab, who cooked up a veritable Zanzibari storm, with me all the while taking copious notes, and insisting on tasting at every stage, while Zeinab passed on various culinary tips, such as the best way to soften octopus prior to cooking (vinegar!), medicinal benefits and the nutritional benefits of different fruits and spices, and the ubiquitous coconut.

Coconuts form an integral part of Zanzibari life. The trees on the palm-fringed beaches offer shade and respite from the heat, while the milk from the fresh nuts is most delicious when drunk straight from the tree.

All you need is a machete to hack away the top in order to access the milk. A spoon can then be carved from the same lid and used to scoop out the thick, gloopy flesh contained within.

When scraped and squeezed from the nut and diluted, the milk forms a delicious base for curries, sauces (or a delicious Omani 'saloona') and desserts, while the oil can be used for cooking, or mixed with local herbs and spices to be used as a hair restorer.

A home-made bottle of coconut oil mixed with local leaves, cardamom pods and cloves still has pride of place on the bookshelf at my home in the UK, and every summer, one of the first things I do upon my return there, is remove the cap and inhale the scents of the Spice Island!

The other must-have ingredient in the Zanzibari diet is the omnipresent African banana - or plantain, known in the local Ki-Swahili language as, 'ndizi'.

I have long been a fan of curries cooked with green bananas, but more so since my Zanzibari neighbours in Muscat planted a couple of trees for me in my garden last year, and I have been able to eat my own organic produce.

The trees bore fruit this year and I had the privilege of tasting home-grown fruit with the most sublime flavours. I'd like to say that I will never again eat a supermarket variety.

But my trees unfortunately only bear one bunch before needing to be cut down to make way for the next generation, so I may have to be a little more patient.

The food today is therefore mainly inspired by the coconut, the banana and my favourite spice island spices. The flavour of the sweet Iftar dessert, tambi, is enlivened by coconut milk, as are the more savoury dishes.

At the same time, the combination of banana and coconut milk produces sumptuous flavours when cooked together with meat in a curry, or with vanilla and cinnamon, in a dessert.

Finally, the spice cake, which can also be found in my book, From Tagine to Masala (the last time I will unashamedly plug this, I promise!), leaves a delightful tingling sensation in the throat due to its contents of cloves, nutmeg and ginger.

Despite not visiting the island for seven years, my association with the place continues today through my friends and neighbours, Hamed and Nasra, and their contributions to my beautiful Zanzibari garden in a hidden corner of Muscat's suburbs, where I currently live.

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to my neighbour Nasra, who prepared the Mandazi, and my cleaner, Shanti, who prepared the Tambi. I accept full and sole responsibility for all of the other dishes!