Nsima: what is it?

Some of you have asked what it is we eat here. When we are at home our food is very much what we are used to. Cereal in the morning. In the grocery store we have a few choices, cornflakes, bran flakes or rice krispies and I always mix it with some type of granola. Hans is a great French toast chef and along with regular eggs we do well for breakfast. Lunch and supper is also simple and quite similar of what we might eat at home in Canada.

However the fruit in season is absolutely delicious. The mangoes are now so ripe and succulent, the pineapples so sweet and juicy. Never have I eaten such flavourful bananas. They are smaller than what we get in Canada but they make the best banana and peanut butter sandwiches! Advocados are plentiful and you buy them for eating “today” or “tomorrow” or two days from now. The seller will find you the level of ripeness of the one you need. They make great guacamole or cheese, tomato and advocado sandwiches.

When we are in the villages, usually twice a week we get the nsima meal. Maize flour in water is cooked for about fifteen minutes until it get pastier and firmer. It is then scooped into patties. This is the staple food and everything else is considered relish. The relish is usually a cooked green such as pumpkin leaves, spinach, okra, or kale mixed with bits of tomato. Because we are visitors we may have chicken or goat in a gravy, just a small piece but enough to give the nsima some flavour. On occasion some scrambled egg may take the place of one of the relishes. And we are always given a bottle of fanta or coke. (quite the sugar rush). This is a feast for the Malawian villager.

We eat with our hand and thus we are offered water and a basin to wash up before we eat. A prayer of thanks is always offered up. It is difficult to partake of such generosity when we know of the hunger that is all around us. But we must never refuse and we so experience the kindness of the villagers.