African Appetisers

Mum and I are the gastronauts of the family. Brother and Sister will experiment within the food groups they like, and Dad will eat what he’s given and be grateful, but Mum and I like to do something a little different every year. Everywhere we travel influences the food we make, and heading over to Zambia opened up a whole new continent of gastronomic possibilities for me.

While we were there I crossed three new animals off my Glutton Club list. Goat – delicious stewed, tender and flavourful; impala – similarly tasty, especially breaded and fried; and kudu, which is another type of antelope. Kudu I did not like. It wasn’t an unpleasant texture, being something like tender lamb, but the flavour was unexpected, being something like tuna. It did not marry well in my head.

Most people in Zambia get their carbohydrates from nshima, the Zambian national dish. It is made by adding mealie meal, a finely ground corn flour, to boiling water, and stirring until the desired consistency is reached. The nshima is formed into a ball, and is then used to scoop up the accompaniments. Make no mistake, to Zambians this is more than a mere alibi food, nshima is the central component of the dish, and all else is frippery. My father grew up in Zambia and has fond memories of mealie meal. Indeed, most ex-Zambians speak of nshima with misty nostalgia in their eyes. It isn’t quite the same anywhere else.

The meal I enjoyed most was probably with our good friend Chieftainess Mwape. She served us nshima with goat casserole, greens, beans, carrot salad and boiled potatoes. Quite the feast, considering her village is in the middle of both elephant country and tsetse fly country. The elephants trample and eat any crops other than cotton and tobacco, and the tsetse flies cause sleeping sickness in cattle. The people of Mwape struggle for food at the best of times, but while we were there it was a particularly lean season. The river was low and the food was scarce, but thanks to the work of NPAC and the tremendous organisation of the Chieftainess, most of the people of Mwape will not need to buy clothes or supplies for school, so they will be well fed until the river rises and the crops can grow and be sold.

First published in Southwell Life, December 2014.

This was apparently the only food we took a photo of. These little golden plums were tart and refreshing, and I still don't know what they're called!