Malawi Food Guide

Ask a Malawian whether they have eaten today and the question is really about nsima. A plate of anything else does not count. That is not a figure of speech: it is close enough to literal that UNESCO inscribed the tradition on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017, as Nsima, culinary tradition of Malawi, covering the growing, the pounding, the cooking and the eating.

Nsima and ndiwo

Nsima is maize flour cooked with water into a smooth, stiff porridge and served in firm mounds. It is eaten with the right hand: you take a piece, roll it, press a dent into it with your thumb and use it to lift the relish. The relish is ndiwo, and ndiwo is where the variety lives. Pumpkin leaves, cassava leaves, mustard greens, beans, groundnut flour stirred through greens, tomato and onion, and on a good day fish.

The point of the pairing is that nsima is deliberately plain. It carries flavor rather than providing it, which is why a Malawian meal is judged on the ndiwo and never on the nsima.

Fish from the lake

Chambo, a tilapia found in Lake Malawi, is the fish everyone names first and it is genuinely good grilled whole. Its stocks have fallen and you will pay for it. Usipa, small and silvery, is dried in the sun on racks along the shore and then cooked with tomato and onion; it is cheaper, it is everywhere, and it is what most people actually eat. Kampango, a lake catfish, turns up smoked.

Eating well and safely

Wash your hands before a meal, and expect a bowl and a jug to be brought round for exactly that. Eat with the right hand. Tap water is not reliably safe, particularly outside the towns, so drink treated or bottled water and be careful with ice and with salads washed in tap water. Cholera outbreaks recur in the rainy season.