Preserved Meat · Nomadic Staple
Oodkac (Muqmad)
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Properly prepared oodkac can keep for more than a year without refrigeration, a preservation trick built for months-long desert migrations.
Oodkac — called muqmad in Somaliland — is meat, usually camel or beef, dried in strips in the sun, cut into small cubes, then fried until it turns into salty, chewy nuggets. It's traditionally eaten alongside canjeero or lahoh flatbread.
Why it's made this way: For nomadic herders crossing long stretches of desert, meat that wouldn't spoil was essential; women in Hargeisa's market still hang fresh strips of meat on washing lines to sun-dry before frying it into oodkac.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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