Mozambican Food Porn

Lick your lips and rub your bellies folks, this post is about sweet and succulent South-East African Sustenance.   I’ve got a few members of my family back home who are pretty big fans of food, so I thought they’d be interested in hearing a little something about what my Mãe’s been filling my stomach with throughout my homestay.

Before I begin, I want to explain that of all the things that have shocked me in Africa, (aside from gigantic spiders) the food situation has done the best job of causing my jaw to drop.  Day after day I find myself surprised by not only the diversity off what’s available, but with the quantity as well.  Oh, and the prices are pretty sweet too.

That said, I do also recognize that Namaacha and Maputo are certainly exceptions to the African expectation.  Although these two places might convince you otherwise, Mozambique, and Africa in general, have huge problems with malnutrition and starvation.  I’m actually expecting to encounter a lot more of this once I head up north where the prevalence of poverty is a lot higher, and opportunities for financial gain seem to be a whole lot smaller. Still, exceptional Mozambique is still part of Mozambique, and I am still blown away by the fact that this is nothing like what I expected to find.

For example, let me tell you a little about Shoprite.  The Shoprite in Maputo redefines the concept of a mega-superstore.  It’s essentially the consequential offspring of a kinky love triangle between Walmart, Target and Safeway.  And it has everything; literally, everything.  If I had known about this place prior to coming, I wouldn’t have packed a second bag.  I remember hearing from RPCV’s (on the internet and in person) time and time again that I should unpack half of what I put in my bags because it wouldn’t  be needed.  And if it turned out that I needed it, I could get it in-country.  Problem was, no one ever advised me on which half to take out. So, I’m gonna clear that up right here and now (just in case there are any future PCV’s heading to Mozambique and reading):  Unpack EVERYTHING.  If you need it, Shoprite has it.  If Shoprite doesn’t have it, then Premier – which is a block or two away and one square kilometer bigger in size – does. 

But I digress (as I often seem to do), I’m not supposed to be drooling over the African Shopping Scene.  This post is about food, so back to it!

Much to my Mãe’s delight, I’ve begun a habit of taking a pictures of my full plate of food prior to diving in and devouring the pile that’s been given to me (a second portion always follows as because she’s also trying to fatten me up so she can brag to her friends about how much I’ve engordar’ed).  I tell her that I want to show the pictures to my American family and Mãe, and she’s excited that I want to put her artwork on display outside the house. She spends most of her time cooking recipes that date back to a time before the Portuguese arrived (that was over years 400 ago), and have been handed down verbally ever since.  She learned to cook by watching her Mãe, eventually transitioning from the role of student to that of the teacher when she had children and taught them the same skills.  She laughs hysterically as I take each photo, as if I’ve just told her she’s going to be featured in a famous cooking magazine.

So, without further ado, I present to you Mozambican food porn:

Matapa (AKA Green Stuff)

Green Stuff

This is the dish you come to Mozambique to eat.  Matapa is Mozambique; and Mozambicans do it well. First and foremost, the leaves of a Mandioka plant (whose leaves looks distinctly similar to those found on a cannabis plant) are picked, chopped, and then pounded (Pillar’ed) into a greenish paste using a Pilão (classic africa: a three foot long section of a tree that’s been hollowed out about half way through and fashioned into a deep bowl).  Peanuts are then deshelled, mixed with some dry rice grains (to suck up some of the moisture, genius!) and put through the same pillar’ing process until they have been crushed into a fine powder.  Not sure what happens next, but at some point they mix in onions, tomatoes, and coconut, then they stew it all together until it looks like what you see in the picture.  It’s served to me over either a bed of white rice or an extremely generous portion of Xima (Mozambican version of mashed potatoes made from corn flour). I eat it all, and it makes me happy.

 

Matção (Other Green Stuff)

Other Green Stuff

Matção is the name of this dish in Shengana (the local Language) and it essentially means “Leaves of the Pumpkin Plant.”  This stuff is freakin’ amazing, and if I wasn’t so terrified of what a consistent diet of nothing but pumpkin leaves would do to my stomach, I’d ask my Mãe to cook it up every single day.  Very similar to Matapa, except that instead of Pillar-ing the leaves (different type of foliage used…in this case, it’s the leaves of a pumpkin plant), they are sliced into thin strips.  Peanuts are prepared in a similar fashion as I described them in Matapa, and both are then stewed with onions, tomatoes, coconut, water, and salt.  Served over White Rice.  When I was in Bilene, we had a variation of this that was served with crab (carangueju) stewed in as well.  It tasted like a crab had made love to a coconut (apologies for all of the sex metaphors in this little blurb)

Cacana (Shitty Green Stuff)

Similar in style to Matção and Matapa, but instead of tasting good, it tastes like a sour ash tray.  I blame the vegetable for this, not the recipe.  A cacana is small, green ball that’s about the size of a grape.  I guess it’s a vegetable, But I’m not really sure.  I also don’t know if there’s an English name for it, but I don’t think so, because I’ve never seen it outside of Moz.  I don’t have a picture of the finished product because I’ve only had it once, and I think my Mãe could tell that I wasn’t a fan.  To be honest, apart from the one time I was forced to stomach it, I don’t know too much about it.  I guess they chop it up and stew it with all the same ingredients (and cigarettes too, cough), and then serve it over white rice.  Either way, it doesn’t matter because I’d rather be locked in a room and forced to watch the same Brazilian Soap Opera over and over again on full volume than eat it again.

Caril de Vaca

I eat this.  A lot.

Beef Medallions (small pieces of piece that have been cut off a much larger hunk of meat we keep in our freezer…and don’t you dare trim the fat off either, we eat it all here) left to cook in boiling water, then stewed with Tomatoes, Onions, Potatoes, Oil and a packet of powdered Chicken Stock.  Served over White Rice.  I usually have this four or five times a week and it’s actually pretty good.  Easy to make and equally delicious.  Tastes a lot like beef stew!

Karapão

Here fishy, fishy, fishy.

(PIC)

Karapão is a breed of fish from Angola (or so I’ve been told…) that my Mãe buys in mass quantities when she is in Maputo, and then freezes individuals so she can use them when she wants (we have one of those box freezers in our house, but no refrigerator).  In preparing it, she chops of the head, cuts the body into a few pieces, and then rubs it down with some salt, garlic, and some other spices (I don’t know what exactly, but whatever it is, it’s savory).  When she ready to cook, she throws the pieces into a pan of oil and fry’s the crap out of them until they taste like salty, garlic-ey heaven. It’s usually served to me on a bed of elbow pasta or spaghetti noodles that have been tossed in oil, tomatoes and onions, along with some fried potatoes.  Before eating, I have to use my hands to extract all the bones.  Honestly, it’s so good that I don’t mind having to go through the tedious bone collection process each and every time I eat it.

Frango

Dead chicken.

Galinha is the word for chicken when it’s alive.  But after the little sucker has been cut and cooked up, it’s called Frango.  There are a ton of different ways to prepare frango, but like so many other things, my Mãe likes to makes a salty little stew with potatoes and broth.  Whenever she wants to make frango, she has to actually go and buy a real-live chicken at the market. Of course, you can buy frozen chicken in bigger cities, but Namaacha doesn’t have that luxury.  Instead, they sell the chicken very much alive, right out of the cage. You see tons of people walking around holding chickens here, returning from the market.  It’s pretty popular, and seems to be a cheap and easy meal (Chickens here cost about 2 or 3 bucks!).  Usually, if my mom isn’t make chicken that night, she’ll leave the chicken sitting in our kitchen overnight.  I once walked in late at night to do the dishes and saw one just sitting there in a bucket too terrified to move.  It stayed put and watched me the entire time, as if it knew what it had coming.  Sad life, but it’s tough to be happy when you’re so delicious.

Far and away my favorite type of frango is when it’s been grilled (Frango Asado).  A friend of mine introduced this delectable delight to me the other day when I followed him to the market for lunch.  We sat down at his Mãe’s stall (she runs a little restaurant there serving lunch to people), and after choosing which half chicken we wanted, she cooked it up and served it to us with some Xima and salad. You then carefully apply a minuscule amount of the eye-watering, home-made Piri-Piri sauce and tear it apart with your hands.  When we were done, we washed ourselves off, said thanks and left 70 Mets on the table (a little more than $2).  The picture at the beginning of this section is from that visit.

Matabicho

My Breakfast, each and every day.

This is a picture of the breakfast (Matabicho) I eat every single morning.  I slice up a small loaf of bread, lather it up with peanut butter, then top it with a cut up banana.  Sometimes I drink tea, but if I'm lucky and we have it, I get Milo (essentially just hot chocolate).

 

Lancha

Yum.

Lanchar means to snack in Portuguese (spelling?), and everyday I'm given the same thing.  Maybe you recognize this picture from my Halloween entry?  My snack is always a Banana, Juice Box, and some Bloachas (cookies/crackers).  Sometimes, instead of Maria's, I get a pack of Aqua e Sal.

A few other things that I don’t have pictures of:

Massa

Massa is the Portuguese word for noodles (I think).  There’s nothing too special about this dish and there are a ton of variations.  Essentially, anything that is mainly noodles, and mixed with other things can be called massa.  My Mãe doesn’t really cook it too often, but when she does, she tosses noodles with tomatoes, onions, and oil, and then makes a small salade of raw onions, cucumbers and oil that I mix in later. Sometimes my host brother has to cook, and he’ll make a variation of this too.  I know I haven’t made it out to be much, but any way it’s served to me is has a freaking phenomenal taste.  He cooks his up with spaghetti and then mixes in fried fish (sardines or karapão), tomatoes, onions and salt before drenching the mixtura in oil.

Kouve

Kouve is Mozambican Kale.  It’s prepared exactly like Matção, and sautéed with the same stuff too.  Another one of my personal favorites!