FOOD

One of my favorite things about living in Malawi and Mulanje in particular has been the opportunity to do a lot of cooking. There are not exactly a lot of restaurants near the mission – actually there’s nothing except for a little cafeteria. The nearest places would be Chitakale, the town about three miles away. It does at least boast the best (maybe only) pizza in the district and our groups frequent it for dinners. There’s also one or two places to get chicken and chips. Chitakale is also where People’s, the only grocery store, is which is very small and basic.

All that to say we’ve been doing a lot of cooking on our own. From scratch. No freezer, no microwave, no pre-made anything really. We do get loaves of bread from the store but that’s about it.

Whole Chicken

I can get frozen chickens (whole, butchered, de-feathered) from People’s and I have gotten pretty good at chopping one of these up. My favorite part is that you never know what is going to be inside the chicken. The first one I got had the feet stuffed in there. That freaked me out for a minute. The last one I got had no fewer than six pairs of lungs. Bizarre. My future goal is to buy a live chicken from the market and go the whole nine yards.

From these chickens I’ve made fried chicken, roasted chicken, and as you saw in the last post, we’ve grilled it too. The leftovers I use for chicken soup, and I’ve gotten fairly good at making noodles to put in the soup. A rolling pin would make that task easier though.

We eat a lot of rice, since the local starch (sima) isn’t really our favorite. It’s boiled corn flour that turns into a gooey blob. It doesn’t taste like much which is why people eat it with “relish” which can be almost anything that’s got some oil and salt content to give it flavor. Ground meat, chicken stew, tomato sauces, cabbage, and various greens all get cooked and served alongside the sima. We’ve learned a few of these recipes and eat them with our rice sometimes. Red beans too are very common and I’m a big fan.

My absolute favorite food experience here so far though has been the local chili peppers. In our front yard we have a “pili pili” a.k.a. Bird’s Eye Chili plant which has provided me with quite a few little red peppers. These guys are pretty spicy. They are what the local hot sauce brand “Nali” is made from. I have cooked up my own sauce from ours in the front yard. Here’s a picture of my recipe.

Hot Sauce

Even better are the “Kambuzi” peppers which are like mini habaneros. They are plentiful in the markets right now so I buy a bunch whenever I get the chance. I made a second batch of hot sauce using a whole bunch of these guys and it really packs some heat! The flavor is great too.

Kambuzi Peppers - fiery delicious

And, it turns out it’s almost dinner time here right now, so I’m going to wrap up and go figure out tonight’s menu!

-Marty