Zambia Food Guide

The quick answer

The center of Zambian eating is nshima: a thick, smooth porridge of white maize meal, served hot in a mound and eaten with the right hand. It is not a side dish. It is the meal, and everything else on the plate is there to go with it.

Nshima and relish

Nshima is cooked by stirring maize meal into water until it is stiff enough to hold its shape. You take a piece, roll it briefly in your fingers, press a dent into it with your thumb and use it to scoop up whatever it is being served with.

That accompaniment is the relish — ndiwo — and it is where the variety lives. It might be a stew of beef or goat, a fish, beans, groundnut-thickened greens, or simply well-cooked vegetables. A Zambian would not describe a meal by the nshima; they would describe it by the relish.

You will be offered a bowl of water and a cloth before eating. Wash your hands even if they are clean; it is part of the meal rather than a formality.

Dishes worth seeking out

• Ifisashi — greens such as pumpkin leaves or rape cooked with ground peanuts into a rich, savory relish. Substantial, vegetarian by default, and one of the best things in Zambian cooking.
• Kapenta — small freshwater fish, mostly from Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kariba, dried and then fried or stewed with tomato and onion. Intensely flavored and eaten with nshima.
• Bream — tilapia from the Zambezi, the Kafue and Lake Kariba, often grilled or fried whole. On a river itinerary this is the dish to order.
• Village chicken — free-range, slow-cooked, and quite different from intensively farmed chicken. Firmer, and far more flavorful.
• Delele — okra relish, with a texture that divides opinion honestly and cheerfully.
• Vitumbuwa — fried dough fritters, sold at roadside stalls and eaten warm.

Chikanda, and why we mention the problem

Chikanda — sometimes called “African polony” — is a savory cake made from ground wild orchid tubers with peanuts and chili, sliced and served cold. It is a genuine delicacy, particularly in the north, and it is delicious.

It also carries a real conservation concern. Demand has grown well beyond what wild orchid populations can support, and harvesting for the trade has put pressure on species across the region. We would rather tell you that than sell you a food story with a hole in it. If you try it, try it once, ask where it came from, and do not take a taste for it home as a shopping list.

Drinks

Mosi, named for Mosi-oa-Tunya, is the lager you will see everywhere, alongside other local and regional beers. Maheu is a thick, lightly sweet non-alcoholic maize drink, sold chilled and genuinely refreshing in the heat. Tea and instant coffee are the everyday hot drinks; Zambian-grown coffee is very good and increasingly easy to find in Lusaka.

Munkoyo, a traditional lightly fermented root-and-maize drink, is worth trying if it is offered.

Eating on safari

Camp and lodge food is generally international with Zambian dishes included, and dietary requirements are straightforward if you give notice — camps buy in for the guests they are expecting, so tell your operator early rather than on arrival. Many camps will happily cook nshima if you ask, and it is worth asking.

Practical care

Drink filtered or bottled water; camps and lodges provide it. Take the usual care with raw salads and unpasteurized dairy outside established kitchens, and eat street food where it is hot, freshly cooked and busy. See the CDC food and water guidance listed below, and our Zambia travel safety guide.

Eating with LABUSA Travel

We build in at least one proper Zambian meal rather than leaving you on lodge buffets for a fortnight — and where a community-run kitchen is part of the experience, that is where we would rather take you.

Banner photograph by Kiranrad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.