Day 5 – Tufts Engineers Without Borders

Malawian Food!

Word of the day: Chakudya = Food

Fun Facts:

Small farmers constitute 80% of Malawi’s population.
38% of Malawians live below the poverty line.
Some of Malawi’s main crops are sweet potato, rice, cassava, and maize.
Nsima, a thick porridge made from ground maize, is popular dish often served with meat, rice, and vegetables.

During our stay, the people in Malawi shared their culture with us through their food. Our group had cooks to prepare our meals, incorporating their traditional foods (with some American flares and adaptations). Our meals typically consisted of proteins, vegetables, and a starch.

outtake: beans, some sort of vegetable (green beans, carrots, or cabbage), with a starch like rice, sweet or normal potatoes, and sometimes pasta (although we think that was because we are American). Occasionally, we would eat a protein that is more expensive, like eggs or, for really special occasions, chicken.

Our staple meals included very similar meals each day.

For breakfast we normally would have rice porridge with brown sugar or peanut butter with Malawian tea.

For lunch and dinner, we enjoyed beans, rice, green beans, carrots, potatoes/sweet potatoes, and nsima. Other foods we got to try included chippies, similar to a wedge fry, and pasta and cabbage.

Call out: Nsima is like mashed potatoes made of cornmeal that you can eat with your hands. (see the video of Naomi showing us how to eat Nsima).

We were also frequently fed chicken and eggs, which is more of a delicacy in Malawi because it is more expensive. This required buying a live chicken and having our chef prepare it.

The Mawali people like to eat foods high in fats and carbs in their diet, like peanut butter, because it helps keep them fuller for longer. To spice things up, Mawali has a famous hot sauce called “Nali.”

While they eat many of the same foods, their diet is based on nutritious staple foods that help fuel them. Furthermore, we were often gifted various food items that were uncooked fruits or vegetables that we were not allowed to eat but were very thankful for! One gift were cucumbers, a vegetable that was a common snack with some salt.