Having come from the spicey chili sauce and cheap and delicious noodles of Asia previous to this, I was not prepared for Africa! Rodolfo and I agree on one thing...for the most part, as amazing as Africa is, you do not come to Africa to eat!
The most popular entree in Southern Africa goes by many different names, but remains about the same:
A serving of cooked porridge style corn meal/maize meal called:
pap (S.A.)
papa (Botswana)
Nshima (Zambia)
Nsima (Malawi)
Ugali (Tanzania)
You receive a plate with a large portion of this substance and you eat it with your right hand and mold it into small balls for dipping into other small bowls of:
fried mustard greens cooked to mush
stewed beans - if you're lucky!! yum!
watery beef broth with a small chunk of extremely chewy beef on the bone, tomatoes and onions
Look out for small stones and pieces of bone!
If you try to eat what locals eat, you can eat quite cheaply, but you also get a little bored! There were however, special ocassions every once in a while that stood out as some of our favorite meals of the trip!
South Africa: Boer wurst!
This is a ring of herbed sausage looped into a sprial and cooked outside on a grill..rrrr....I mean Braii!
This sausage is purchased at a local Butchery...not butcher, and each Butchery uses a secret mix of spices a South African will drive far and wide to find! Let me tell you, it's worth! This meat is perfect with a 'sundowner' beer and chilling with good friends!
Botswana: Fried chicken and fries on the local bus
You sit on the bus and while waiting for it to leave..hours of my life gone by forever... you can purchase a small portion of cold chips and breaded chicken on the bone. It's small, cold, oily and absolutely delicious sitting on a bus for ages! The perfect dessert would be a nice big juicy orange that are also sold by people walking down the aisles, or perhaps a ball of fried dough! mmm...mmm..
Zambia: Grilled t-bone steak
You purchase your meat at the local butchery, where they also supply you with a grill right outside the front door where you grill your own! Need a beer while your steak cooks? There's a bar next door with beers for $1! No need for plates, just carve your meat right off the grill!! Street food brought to a whole new level!
Malawi: Bus bananas and flying cabbages
Malawi hasn't caught on to the idea of cans or preserving food so they have to sell their produce as quickly as possible before it goes bad. If something is in season, you eat a lot of it! The favored way to buy food is on your way home thru the bus window! I watched a man throw a huge head of cabbage into the window and the women purchasing, simply threw her money out into the wind while the bus drove off with the cabbage man chasing after! This particular bus trip also marked the first time I've seen a child chew on the peels of a banana before eating the banana itself with a look of pure pleasure. At first I thought it was a cultural thing, but then I realized, no....she was just that hungry.
Tanzania: Guac in the park
On our way from Malawi to Mbeya Tanzania, Rodolfo thought he had bargained for one giant avacado out the bus window for $1, to have the entire bowl of 6 thrown onto his lap bowl and all - we gave her back the bowl..well, more like threw it out the window in her direction....
In a small town called Iringa, we bought some plastic plates, garlic, tomato and salt and had ourselves a GUAC FEST in the local city park with some very tall and hungry British boys we'd been traveling with. To the stares of locals, we ate masses of guac with a loaf of bread while listening to an ipod and drinking glass bottles of Fonta....a little piece of Western home on the road...or as close as we could get.
Zanzibar: spiced coffee
Now, contrary to the rest of the trip, Zanzibar IS the place to come to eat for weeks and weeks in between laying out on the perfect beaches and getting lost in the maze of Stone towns streets!
The air is filled with spices and it's intoxicating just to breathe it in!
Our favorite end to the day was at the street corner a few blocks from our hotel where old men would come and sip espressos in little cups! You ask for a coffee and they immediately pour you a piping hot little cup of pure love out of a giant metal kettle they keep hot on coals next to your feet. You sip your coffee while nibbling on a crunchy, sugary candy you pull out of a giant jug. We would sit and watch the locals watch us. It's also a great spot to see people walking with suitcases on their heads to catch the slow night ferry to Dar. It was a perfect culinary end to the perfect day of eating.
