Cultural Cooking

After the school day was over Elizabeth told us that we were going to different homes to help prepare dinner.We were divided into groups of 2 or 3 and dropped off at various houses. My group consisted of Catherine, Dominique Leach, and me. We came to the house bearing gifts of thanks for this opportunity. We gave the family ground corn (which is a staple in their diet), tomatoes, a dishtowel, oil, a bowl, and peanuts. As soon as we got there we began to cook.

First, Catherine ground dried pumpkin leaves in a very large mortar and pestle. Febby, the woman that we were cooking with sifted the leaves to get the finest pieces and placed the rest into the mortar and pestle for more grinding. This continued for about three minutes and then we began to work on the peanuts. Dominique tried to grind the peanuts and when she started, Febby instantly began to laugh. Her family then came over and also began to laugh at Domique's technique. They tried to give her verbal instructions but it didn't work so I gave it a try. When I started, one of Febby's sons told me to go fast, so I did. But, everyone just laughed. After a good 2 minutes of fast grinding, Febby told me that I'm supposed to go slow and pound hard.

Once the peanuts had been ground to perfection by Catherine, we boiled a little bit of water and stewed the peanuts and pumpkin leaves for 6-8 minutes. Once the stew/sauce was finished, we began the nshima ( is a cornmeal product and a staple food in Zambia). We boiled more water and then added the ground corn in small amounts. Once the mixture acquired the consistency of porridge, Dominique stirred the mixture in circles as it began to become more like mashed potatoes I took a turn stirring. As soon as I began to stir in circles all of Febby's family began to laugh, again. Eventually someone showed me how to properly stir, the same motion as rowing a boat. Once the nshima was finished, we went into Febby's home and ate our dinner. It was a wonderful experience to have a chance to see how to prepare Zambian food and to see what Febby’s family think of our cooking skills.

-Grace