Cooking Class Anyone?

 

Imagine yourself attending a cooking demonstration, under a tree, in which only bricks, wood and ingredients grown in your own community are being used! One day last week, we were led on motorbike by Betty, one of the project’s Development Facilitators, into a remote location for just such an experience. We were warmly greeted by a few of the members of the local farmers’ group while the cooks quietly continued their work. Squatting in front of individual “stoves” (made up of three stacks of two bricks each and being fed by a long thin log gradually moved in to the centre of the fire to keep an even temperature), they added the various components and stirred.  Each was happy to show their cooking process and the ingredients being used, as well as being agreeable to pose for photos.

One of the things this food security project addresses is health and nutrition. There is a high degree of malnourishment in the two districts of this project. This is due in part to the scarcity of food for the three months after the previous season’s harvested food runs out and the current crop is not yet ready for harvesting.  It is also due to a lack of nutritional knowledge. This project, through Betty and her trained volunteer Community Health Workers, has organized groups of people interested in improving their families’ health. As they meet monthly, they receive a hands-on cooking class along with teaching about the nutritional content of the various ingredients.  Seeds to grow high protein crops or garden plants are distributed as well. There is a mix of males and females in this group as the desire to raise the health levels of their families is a value all of them hold dear.

After a little wait, the dishes were placed in a row on a bench and one by one the cooks proudly picked up their entrées, removed the lids and showed them to everyone seated in the circle.  They listed the ingredients and explained how they cooked them in detail – some even included the steps of gathering the wood, building the “stove” and starting the fire. Through interpretation we got the gist of it and were impressed – even more so when we had the opportunity to sample these dishes! For those foodies out there, here is a list of the entrees, translated: crunchy soybean snack, fresh maize porridge drink, sweet potato fritters, fried bananas with vegetables, “free range” chicken with groundnut sauce (much like peanut sauce), cow pea sausage (vegetarian), pumpkin and tomato relish and nshima. Let us point out that nshima is the base of most meals. Maize flour – not too fine – is boiled and stirred until it is a consistency that can be picked up in chunks for lunch and supper but left thinner for breakfast porridge.

 

After having water poured out over our dusty hands we were invited to sit around a low bench where a sample of each dish was arranged for our eating pleasure.  By following the lead of the others and thanks to some previous IRM training, we used only our right hands to pluck up bits of nshima to use as a utensil to pick up the next bite of communal food. We bravely tried everything and decided we could live happily on this kind of fare!

We apologize if reading this has made you hungry.  Just for fun, try making a meal from homegrown, unpackaged and non processed food! We have been challenged to do a bit of that here, although Chipata does have a fair choice of imported foods.  The roadside local markets have many choices and it is a colourful experience to walk along picking out fresh fruits and vegetables.

 

We are thankful for food and “Cooking with gas!”  – ( the electricity is off – again!)