Malawian food

One of the main things people seem to want to know is what did I eat in Malawi. I had little kitchen with two electric hob rings but no oven and no fridge so that plus the power cuts  limited what I could eat.

For breakfast every morning I tended to have porridge or a hot chocolate although when it hit mango season there was the fruit option. Apples are very good and bananas are plentiful but apart from them and the mangoes there was not much more variety fruit wise.

Lunch was monotonous but I am got really used to it. I chose between rice, chips or nsima (the local speciality with the consistency of cross between mashed potato and dough made out of maize and cassava) with beef stew (4 chunks of beef in a sauce); a piece of barbecued chicken or 2 fried eggs (fried to the point where there is no evidence of a yolk ever having been involved). On the side (or as a relish as they call it) it’s coleslaw, shredded chinese leaves or best of all – beans. There are about 5 restaurants with this exact same menu at the same prices to rotate around. There is nice local fish called chambo from Lake Malawi but it was of my price range for lunch every day and as I always ate with my Malawian colleagues I wanted to eat the same as them.

The strange thing is that there really are plenty of food options available. At the beginning of my stay I put this menu down to a lack of variety of food available. Since then I realised how wrong I was. At that particular time there was not much food available due to fuel shortages (more of these later) which meant nobody could get their products to market. In later weeks the markets filled with tomatoes, lettuces, red onions, peas, green peppers, baby aubergines, okra, broccoli, cauliflowers – it’s just that these vegetables  are not embraced by traditional Malawian fare and so are neglected from all menus! It gave me options for the evening though although lack of sauces to eat with the vegetables was holding me back. I took a trip to the big city (Lilongwe – the capital) where I found packet sauces (including the much treasured cheese sauce) and so self-prepared evening meals were brightened. Cheese is not really an option. It is scarce and so expensive. Anything imported is expensive as we have to remember that Malawi is a landlocked country and so transport costs substantially inflate prices. At the weekend I sometimes went crazy and treaedt myself to steak (which is pretty cheap) or a sausage.

Before I arrived in Malawi I was convinced that the Chinese would have infiltrated Mzuzu and that there would be a Chinese restaurant. Alas no on the restaurant front. There are Chinese run shops and lots of Chinese funded construction underway (but currently stalled). However there are two curry joints and one of these doubles up a pizza provider. Then there is the restaurant at the lodge where I lived which does a traditional English menu including lasagne, sausage and mash and fish and chips. They are really the only eating out options and then only as a treat as they cost about 5 times the price of my lunch.

When I first arrived back in the UK I had no appetite as I was overwhelmed by the richness of food in flavour and choice. I have succumbed now though to the temptation of variety but still crave beans.