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| July. 2014. This is Cassava leaves |
Somehow, I
have forgotten to eat local food since I came to Mozambique. I have eaten
yogurt and egg for breakfast, and I have ordered expensive Italian food for
lunch during the whole week. I hardly saw Mozambican staff go out and have
lunch because they bring the food from their home (and the lunch time was only
for 30 minutes: 12:30pm to 1pm!) It was only me in the office who order the lunch
from the restaurant. The good thing was that they deliver the food! However,
the minimum price for lunch should be 350MT (=$11) to order delivery.
I was
working with DM&E team leader, Isaiah, in this morning, and he suddenly
asked, “Have you tried Mozambican food?”
Yes! Portuguese steak! Wasn’t it the local food? To be honest, I wanted to go
out somewhere and walked around, but I have no idea where to go after work at
night. He looked at me pitifully for a while and called somewhere to order “matapa.”
“What is matapa?!” It was Mozambique local food. I
was already wondering how it looks and how it taste. "Where are we going?" He grinned and said, "Let's go to my place for lunch." I thought he ordered the
food at some restaurant, but he took his 2-year old cute kid at the
kindergarten (it was located right next to the office!), and he also took me to
his home for lunch. I was invited to his family’s lunch. He was such a nice
man.
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| Today's lunch. Do you see matapa and chima? |
I thought
there was only rice and matapa for lunch, but there were beef, chima, anchovy,
and vegetable. 오예! The white bread made of maize flour is called “chima”
here in Mozambique, but each country calls it different name: Fufu in West
Africa, Nsima in Malawi, Nshima in Zambia, and Ugali in Tanzania. It was so
hot; that was a good excuse for me to avoid using my hands to eat chima.
Getting to
the point, matapa was almost like cassava leaves in Sierra Leone! Matapa is a
typical Mozambican dish that can be also made of young cassava leaves (or other
leaves), garlic, flour, crab, and nuts. It must be “taking so much time” dish.
I saw how people cook cassava leaves one time, and they boiled them in the hot
water again and again to extract a sour taste, and then stir it with many other
ingredient. I enjoyed the meal. It’s time to work again. Let’s go to the
office.
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