Leaving the Burundian table presents us with a great moment of sadness. Goodbye my small pleasures and pastry shops. In Zambia, cuisine returns to the source of deep tradition. As nearly always in Africa, the base of most meals is dough of corn meal (like ugali) called nshima here. Immediately familiar, recognizing this cousin of our dear old friend with only its own virtues to habituate to, it is satisfying all the same to begin with. Soon enough, we have a difficult time imagining a meal without nshima on the table. The significant difference between ugali of Kenya (for example, since it’s preparation most resembles that of the Kenyan version) and nshima is that the latter is far softer, wetter, and lighter. If ugali is to brick: then nshima is to clay. It is prepared by first making a simple corn meal porridge in hot but not-yet-boiled water, then allowing it to come to a boil and cooking down for a good fifteen minutes undisturbed before finally adding another large quantity of meal, stirring rapidly, and then letting to settle. It is cooked with more water and less meal than ugali. This preparation also makes the nshima much hotter to the touch when straight from the fire, so the impatient gourmands like myself will find their first few days in the country full of aching fingertips. It is best to wait a few minutes before sculpting those little balls into some play-doh like shovel for collecting the delicious accompaniments scattered about your plate.
Zambians generally are good hardened carnivores. No matter the hour of the meal, the aromas of grilled meats invade the thin paths of the markets and creep their ways out to the streets. It also wouldn’t be unfair to say that very few things would be shocking for a Zambian to eat: goat, pork, steak, entrails and innards, birds and anonymous testacies are on almost everyone’s barbeque rack. Sausages, saucisson, “Hungarian” sausages (a mystery still to me how such a thing became popular in Zambia) can also be purchased in most restaurants and snack bars in the country. Outside of major cities it is common to find men about the side of the road displaying their freshly killed bush meats (game) for sale, and drying from a tree along the road. Bush meats here are respected, and greatly appreciated though rarely consumed excepting marriages and holidays.
The most common fish in Zambia are still the small dried freshwater sardines (called here kapenta) cooked down with tomatoes and onions. But the Zambezi River having over 60% of the fish species which can be found in all of Africa’s freshwaters, there is no lack of diversity for the connoisseurs. In general fish are fried, stewed or braised and left unaccompanied to not distract from its pure taste.
Insects too are eaten regularly and by everyone as one of the more original flavors of Zambian cuisine. At the beginning of the rain seasons, children are sent from homes to collect nightly termites, to be fried and eaten aide the nshima. The preparation is simple. Just pull the wings from the male termites (the favorite step of the preparation for children), rinse the termites before putting them over the fire with a little oil, salt and serve. The more popular feast is made of smoked grub worms which can be purchased in enormous rice sacks throughout the country, and also along the routes. Though fresh these soft worms are bright white, when smoked they become crunchy and dark grey. It’s always a great pleasure to regard the other passengers of the buses passing them about and toughly chewing away, loudly, during a long passage between towns.
The markets of Zambia are well stocked with most fruits and vegetables one needs to prepare just about any style of cuisine they choose. One of the more popular greens, rape (a type of collard greens similar to Kenya’s sukuma wiki) is a bitter leaf to contrast the tasty pumpkin leaves (with flowers) on sale throughout the floors of the market. Rape can also be mixed with the small bitter yellow eggplants, with a little curry and salt, makes a great side to nshima and red beans. But green beans, peppers, chilies, zucchini, thick okra, and cabbage are all part of the everyday meals prepared in most restaurants (usually served in various forms of stew).
Stew of chantrelle mushrooms / Chantrelles
Larger cities in Zambia are primarily fast food havens (with your exaggeratingly high-priced restaurants usually a bit outside from centers). In the markets are about the only places you might find the small Boui-Boui’s we love so much. If not, you are likely to only find strings of generic or chain takeaways selling fried chicken, fries and burgers; places like Chicken Inn, Chicken Zam, Hungry Lion and Subway. It’s possibly the most amount of fast food we’ve encountered since Nairobi. Bakeries too are far and wide, though the quality and diversity of bread is a far cry from Bujumbura. Usually you’ll find just loaves of white bread, brown bread, and rolls. South African supermarket giant Shoprite is in every corner of the country from small towns to the various nooks of its cities. It is there that Zambians go for their overwhelming choices in premade sauces, desserts, juices, cleaning soaps and your generally homogenous atmospheres.
As for snacking and quick street munches, you will still find the streets booming with vendors of grilled or boiled corn, peanuts, and mandazi, though add to that cream filled long doughnuts, scones, scone-like muffins, and fritters. Mangoes are ripe and plentiful during the season, though bananas are rarer than near the coasts of Tanzania.
All in all, Zambians cook with less salt and oil than many of the countries nearby with similar culinary traditions, making eating out feel a bit fresher and healthier than in some. It isn’t a cuisine to impress us the way some have either, but I find myself hankering some piping hot nshima even now, so we certainly won’t go hungry anytime soon.
Smoked grubs / Vers fumés
Quitter la table burundaise est un grand moment de tristesse. Adieu les petites douceurs et les pâtisseries, en Zambie la cuisine redevient très traditionnelle. La base de l’alimentation est toujours cette pâte de farine de maïs que l’on appelle ici nshima. Reconnaissons-lui quand même quelques vertus, elle satisferait n’importe quel appétit et il devient rapidement difficile de s’en passer. La consistance du nshima est beaucoup plus molle et plus humide que celle de l’ugali. Pour illustrer comparons : si l’ugali est une brique, le nshima est une pate d’argile. Servie à peine sortie du feu, elle brûle les doigts, le gourmand doit alors attendre quelques minutes avant de pouvoir le manipuler pour en faire des petites boules qui lui servirons à manger l’accompagnement. Un repas sans nshima est inconcevable. La pâte est en général consommée avec différents types d’aliments.
Buga fish / Buga du lac Tanganyika
Les zambiens sont de vraies carnivores, aux heures des repas, les odeurs de viandes grillées envahissent les ruelles des marchés. Il ne serait pas choquant de dire qu’en Zambie tout ce qui est comestible se mange. Chèvre, porc, vache, entrailles sont préparées sous toutes les formes possibles. Les saucisses mystérieusement dites hongroises sont souvent disponible dans les petits restaurants de quartier.
La viande de brousse vendue sur le bord de la route à l’abri des regards est appréciée mais rarement consommée au quotidien.
Les insectes sont à la base des plats les plus originaux et souvent les plus appréciés. Au début de la saison des pluies, la chasse aux termites commence. Les enfants se regroupent à la tombée de la nuit autour des termitières pour commencer la récolte. Une fois en cuisine la préparation des insectes est simple :
- arracher les ailes des insectes (ce que les enfants auront en général déjà fait avec grand plaisir)
- rincer les termites à l’eau tout en mettant de l’huile sur le feu
- jeter le tout dans une poêle et laisser les insectes roussir et griller
- ajouter du sel selon les gouts
Les gros vers blancs fumés et croustillants sont aussi grandement appréciés et souvent vendus en grande quantité aux bords des routes.
Sur les marchés la diversité des fruits et légumes est grande. Une feuille que l’on nommerape est à la base de nombreuses préparations. Mélangés avec de petites aubergines amères, le plat accompagne parfaitement une assiette de nshima et de haricots rouge. Haricots vert, poivrons, aubergines sont à la base de délicieux ragouts.
Nshima, cabbage and rape / Nshima, chou et rape
Lusaka est une ville de fast-food. En dehors des marchés où les petites cuisinières de rue opèrent il est difficile de trouver autre chose que des restaurants à la chaine où le poulet frit est roi, chiken-inn, chiken-zam, Hungry Lion, Lusaka ressemble en ce point à Nairobi. Les boulangeries sont assez nombreuses, mais la diversité des pains plutôt réduite, pain de mie ou buns, pain blanc ou brun, le client n’a pas trop de questions à se poser. Les supermarchés sud-africains ont aussi envahis les rues de Lusaka offrant aux zambien toute une nouvelle gamme de produits alimentaires.
Pour les petits creux diététique restent les vendeurs de rue maïs, arachides, bananes, et mangues, les rues de Lusaka ne manquent de rien. Le matin, les muffins au goût de scones, les éternels mandazi et les longs doughnuts fourrés à la crème sont à la base de n’importe quel petit déjeuner.
