Foodies in Africa

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Geo: -12.895, 31.9228

So here we are out in the Wildlife Camp, seven kilometres from the village of Mfuwe, and a rough 2 and 1/2 hour drive from Chipata with the closest big grocery store. So how are you going to be able to eat and what are you going to eat?

In the past, when staying elsewhere, we were able to ride into Mfuwe on the supply truck as we needed but they do not make this run as often, are further from the village and so we were wondering how we would be able to make it without having to pay for trip into town.

The first morning we had slept in and were just getting ourselves organized for going to get breakfast at the restaurant when up comes a guy with a burlap bag over his shoulder and told us he has vegetables for sale. Went over to one of the tables and he put his produce out for us to see. He had lettuce, rockets, spinach(more like a bok choy) lovely green onions and he then introduced himself as Thomas to us. Asked us what other things we needed. Robert asked if he grew these vegetables himself. "Yes, no GMO vegetables!" He told us if we would give
him a list he would bring the things to us the next day. So.....we gave him a list and off he went. Said he could not bring them real early in the morning because it would be too dangerous because of the elephants. We have learned in the past they are not fond of bicycles.

The next day Thomas showed back with things from our list...eggs do not travel very well by bicycle! We had asked for potatoes, tomatoes, bananas and eggs. He brought us some great "travel well" bananas and once again Laura had to learn a lesson. Sat the bananas down to get a big bag to carry everything to the kitchen when up jumped the vervet monkeys and were intent on getting themselves some bananas. Managed to scare they off with the loss of only
one banana. Seems this is a hard lesson for some of us to learn. You CANNOT set things down for a minute; they are up in the trees, bushes, watching for you to do what I had done and grab your food right from under your nose.

A familiar sound in the bush camps is hollering as the monkey or baboon runs off with something of yours!

Guess the word is out there are people to buy vegetables at Wildlife Camp because the farmers keep on coming with their vegetables. Today I was able to buy fresh dill, basil, parsley, chives, and mint in the herb selection, rockets, 3 kinds of lettuce, cucumber, purple and white onion with lovely green tops, and greens that are very similar to bok choy and green bell peppers. Robert is thinking about making dill pickles from the cucumbers and dill but the jury is still out on that one!

Change is sometimes hard for these people and we needed 5 kwacha change ($1) and asked him to get us some eggs and sent him with enough money to get us a dozen and they would arrive with one of the workers the next day. He found a worker heading in today and so got 10 eggs because this was all he had but he threw in two beautiful tomatoes as well.

Another farmer showed up and we negotiated for more of the beautiful greens and Robert made us some palak paneer Africa style with the greens. It was quite delicious.

We managed a ride into town after a game drive and got ourselves some tilapia, mince(ground beef) and boerwars(sausage). We had bought some coconut cream(like coconut milk) and made some delicious coconut curried tilapia over rice and greens.

We had also gotten some red beans and white beans in our village run and cooked some beans, made the mince with the carne adovado sauce we brought and rice with chopped lettuce and tomatoes! Just like at home.

How about some pasta with fresh basil, a homemade tomato, carrot and onion sauce as another meal. No parmesan but a nice salad along with and a glass of red wine! So as you can see we are not suffering while we are here. The other day one of the salesmen showed up with eggplant and we made ratatouille(sp) which was quite enjoyable.

We do, because of the heat, try to cook in the morning, make enough for both lunch and dinner so we just have to warm things up. So far we are doing pretty well.

So bottom line is we are eating quite well, experimenting with dishes and getting to eat more greens than we have ever eaten and having fresh sliced tomatoes with most lunch and dinner meals so this part of the trip has been quite nice as far as preparing the food! And should mention the prices have been very reasonable considering we are getting fresh garden produce delivered right to us! The tomatoes especially...........taste like a tomato should.

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Photos

Foodies in Africa
fresh lettuce, greens, onion-red and white, bell pepper and their claim
no GMO's, fresh veggies

Foodies in Africa
green bag we stored out dry goods out of the sight of the monkey's

Foodies in Africa
fresh herbs----dill, chives, basil, parsley, mint

elephants at coffee in morning