Zimbabwe

🇿🇦South Africa

Biltong

Umncweba

South Africa's most loved snack: dried, cured, and spiced meat (beef, game, or ostrich) with coriander and salt

🇿🇦South Africa

Boerewors

South Africa's traditional farmer's sausage of beef (90%+ meat) with coriander, cloves, and nutmeg, coiled and braaied. A national and braai staple, juicy and aromatic, a cultural icon, served in a roll or with pap, a cornerstone.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Bota

Thin maize or millet porridge cooked for breakfast and flavoured with peanut butter, milk, sugar or a knob of butter.

🇧🇼Botswana

Chibuku

Opaque sorghum and maize beer brewed commercially and sold still fermenting in cartons and plastic Scuds that must be shaken before opening.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Chikenduza

A soft bun topped with a thick slab of pink or white sugar icing, sold from bakery counters and tuckshops everywhere.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Chimodho

A dense maize-meal bread mixed with a little wheat flour and baked or steamed in a pot, sliced thick and eaten with tea.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Cowpea Leaves

Muriwo wenyemba

Young cowpea leaves boiled with bicarbonate of soda to soften them and finished with peanut butter or tomato.

🇿🇦South Africa

Dombolo (Dumplings)

Dombolo

South African steamed bread dumplings, served with stews and soups to soak up the sauce. A national and home staple, soft and golden, a comfort and rustic dish, a traditional and hearty companion

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Dovi

Chicken or beef stewed with onion, tomato and a heavy addition of peanut butter into a thick russet stew, sometimes with greens and okra stirred in.

🇲🇼Malawi

Kapenta

Matemba

Small freshwater sardines netted at night on Lake Kariba under lamps, sun-dried on racks and then fried with tomato and onion.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Madora

Amacimbi

Mopane caterpillars gutted, boiled in salt water and sun-dried, then fried with onion and tomato or eaten dry as a snack.

🇿🇦South Africa

Mageu (Mahewu)

Mageu

A traditional South African fermented maize-meal drink, sweet and tangy

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Maguru

Cow tripe boiled for hours until it loses its chew, then stewed with onion and tomato — a cheap, slow, much-loved plate.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Maputi

Whole dried maize kernels popped in a dry pot or roasted in sand until they burst and go crunchy, salted and sold in bags.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Masau

Small jujube-like fruit from the Zambezi valley, eaten fresh, dried, or fermented into a strong local brew during the Muzeze festival.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Matamba

Monkey orange, a hard green-shelled fruit that is cracked open to a tart, seedy pulp eaten raw or cooked down with sugar.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Matohwe

The snot apple: a hard brown pod whose fibrous pulp is chewed and sucked, slippery and faintly sweet-sour.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mazhanje

Sugar plum, a brown-skinned wild fruit of the miombo woodland with sticky orange flesh tasting of dried apricot.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mazoe Orange Crush

Mazoe

Orange cordial made from Mazoe valley citrus since the 1930s, diluted with water and drunk at every Zimbabwean table.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mazondo

Cow trotters simmered until the tendons turn to gelatine and the sauce goes sticky, eaten with sadza and a lot of napkins.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mbambaira

Sweet potatoes boiled or roasted whole and sold hot at roadsides and bus ranks, eaten plain with tea.

🇿🇦South Africa

Morogo (African Spinach)

Morogo

A South African dish of wild African spinach (morogo) cooked with onions, garlic, and sometimes peanuts. A national and traditional staple, herby and savory, a healthy and rural dish, a comfort and home classic

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Muboora

Young pumpkin leaves and their shoots stripped of their fibrous skin, boiled and finished with peanut butter or tomato.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mufushwa

Vegetables — covo, pumpkin leaf, okra, cowpea leaves — blanched and sun-dried in the harvest months to be rehydrated through the dry season.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mupunga uneDovi

White rice cooked and then stirred through with peanut butter until every grain turns pale orange, eaten as a main with greens.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Muriwo uneDovi

Covo, rape or pumpkin leaves boiled down with onion and tomato and finished with a large spoonful of peanut butter until the sauce thickens and turns russet.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Mutakura

Dried maize kernels boiled for hours with groundnuts, cowpeas or bambara nuts and nothing but salt, eaten by the handful.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Nhopi

Pumpkin boiled down and mashed with maize meal and peanut butter into a thick sweet-savoury mash, eaten as a meal or a pudding.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Nyimo Beans

Nyimo

Bambara groundnuts, a hard round legume grown mostly by women on marginal soil, boiled for hours or roasted and salted.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Road Runner Chicken

Huku yemumusha

Free-range village chicken, slow-grown and lean, stewed for a long time with onion and tomato because it is far too tough to roast.

🇲🇼Malawi

Sadza

Isitshwala

White maize meal stirred into boiling water in two stages — a thin porridge first, then more meal beaten in — until it is stiff enough to be rolled into a ball by hand.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Sadza reZviyo

Sadza made from finger millet or sorghum instead of maize, coming out reddish-brown, denser and slightly sour.

🇿🇦South Africa

Samp

Sitambu

A South African staple of crushed dried corn kernels, cooked with beans or served with meat. A national and traditional staple, hearty and savory, a comfort and daily dish

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Tanganda Tea

Tanganda

Black tea grown in the Eastern Highlands around Chipinge since 1924, brewed strong with condensed milk and a great deal of sugar.

🇿🇦South Africa

Umngqusho (Samp & Beans)

Umngqusho

A Xhosa dish of samp (crushed dried corn) and sugar beans, slow-cooked with onions and garlic, a Nelson Mandela favorite. A national and traditional staple, hearty and savory, a comfort and daily dish

🇿🇦South Africa

Umqombothi

Hwahwa

A traditional South African beer of maize, sorghum, and malt, low in alcohol and rich in vitamin B, a communal drink