Food & Daily life
Malawians have a saying: ‘chimanga ndi moyo’ (maize is life). For 90% of Malawians, life revolves around growing enough maize to feed the family.
Droughts and floods, a common feature of the country’s climate, can spell disaster for crops and a successful harvest is cause for great celebration and joy!
Maize seed is planted when the rains come. Two weeks later, after the first green shoots have appeared, the crop is weeded and fertilised. The plants grow to seven or eight feet before the cobs are ready to be picked.
It's a fact...
Potatoes are sometimes used as part of the relish eaten with nsima. But they can also be found in town or city streets as a commercial food at a “chippie” stand. Here they are fried over a fire and sold in small bags to eat directly. Sound familiar?
When you travel around, you see field upon field of maize. Most families grow maize wherever they can, in any spare patch of ground.
All members of the family – including the youngest of children – help plant, tend, pick and process the crop.
Some of the cobs are eaten fresh. But most are taken to the local mill for grinding into flour before it is cooked into a paste to create ‘nsima’, a thickly mashed, starchy meal that feeds the family in the weeks ahead.
Click here to see Joyce’s trip to the maize mill
Fresh fruit & veg plentiful
Malawi is an agricultural society, which means that fresh produce is usually plentiful. Imported Western-style processed foods (such as cereal and cheese) are limited in availability and would rarely be found in the villages where the majority of Malawians live.
Eating by hand
Using a tripod made of three supporting stones, women usually prepare the staple food of nsima.
- Preparing nsima on a tripod
Because most Malawians are farmers and need a lot of energy for working in the fields, the carbohydrate element of any meal is the most important, with the relish only intended to add flavour. As well as the maize-based nsima, Malawians also eat rice, cassava and potatoes for their energy supply.
Dried fish on the move
It's a fact...
Local Malawians say ‘you haven’t eaten your fish until you’ve eaten its head!’ They may also smile as they encourage you to try some of the more exotic local recipes based on insects, such as the patties mashed with lake flies which are caught in large quantities.
Around Lake Malawi, unsurprisingly the ndiwo relish is often based on fish. Because Malawians are also skilled in the craft of drying their catches, fish can be found throughout the country’s markets. The locals particularly rely on a small fish similar to whitebait, which is called usipa and utaka. These can be seen drying on racks near many fishing villages.
Larger species of fish are also eaten, such as mpasa (lake salmon), batala (butter fish) and kampango (similar to catfish). However, chambo, a bream-like white fish is probably the most popular and may be known to some Western diners as ‘tilapia’.
