[Ugnet] Fish Bones a Delicacy for the Poor

It is about 7 a.m. in the morning, a double cabin Pick Up vehicle screeches by the roadside at Nakawa Market, along Jinja Road.

A handful of women carrying empty baskets impatiently rush towards its direction even before it stops.

"I need ten kilogrammes," one of them shouts at the driver of the Pick Up vehicle.

At a distance, the cargo in the vehicle, looks like freshly caught fish. But Magdalene, one of the women, tells me it is fiire a colloquial translation for fish "fillet."

Another closer look reveals that fiire are infact bones and offals, remnants from fish processing factories.

A kilogramme of fiire ranges between Shs500 to Shs700.

These bones have become a regular delicacy for many poor families who find beef and fish expensive, let alone chicken.

On average a kilogramme of beef or fish in Kampala is Shs2,500 per kilogramme, and one of chicken at a minimum of Shs5,000.

According to Mr Nsimbe Bulega, the Principle Fisheries Inspector at the Fisheries Department, most people find beef, chicken and fish very expensive.

He says increased export of fish has hiked prices in the local market.

"Exports of fish are hiking local prices of fish. Many Ugandans have resorted to eating skeletons which are cheaper," he says.

At Kasubi Market, Mr Joseph Mulika, a trader, tells me that fiire is the poor family's beef or chicken.

"Fish used to be the cheapest protein one could afford apart from beef and chicken now the winds are drifting. 500 grams of fish costs Shs2,000 this is too expensive for my grandmother," he says.

He says the price of fish has more than tripled from a previous Shs600 - Shs700 per kilogramme to Shs2,500.

Bulega says Uganda's annual catch of fish is about 220,000 metric tonnes. 70,000 metric tonnes of these are used locally in the 15 factories across the country to produce about 25,000 metric tonnes of the finished products for export.

For Mr Bosco Katende, fish has fallen out of the poor man's regular basket of food.

"Years back when the Nile Patch had just been introduced, in Uganda my father could buy one fish and we could spend weeks feeding on it," he says, but today, he adds, that is news in most families. It has become an expensive item on the daily menus of middle and upper class. One such is Ms Monica Nabbosa, a secretary at one of Kampala's law firms.

"If I am to eat fish for lunch, I order from my caterer," she says.

Eating fiire, according to Dr Lawrence Kaggwa, the Director of Mulago Hospital, is not bad at all because it contains minerals like phosphates, and calcium but it lacks important proteins from the flesh. In Kampala most restaurants skip preparing fish and only do so on order.

For the Nakawa women, it is not only a livelihood to retail fiire in the market, it is also the only 'beef' they can afford for their families.

[Ugnet] Fish Bones a Delicacy for the Poor

Reply via email to