The prosperity of a Zambian family is often gauged by the food that it eats. Having recently made the beautiful country of Zambia my new home, the cuisine here has also gradually found its way to our dining table.

We love to be adventurous and experiment a lot with food, hence the trial and error of making Zambian food continues.

Zambia is a poor country but richly endowed with plenty of rainfall and a fertile soil conducive to growing a variety of vegetables, groundnuts, fruit and maize which is the staple food.

The farmlands are lush green and there is substantial rural population even though Zambia is becoming urbanised as industrialisation is on the increase.

People living in rural areas are strongly bound to tradition inclusive of their eating habits. But the urban palate has started experimenting with food other than the traditional fare. Locals are now seen relishing Italian, Indian and Lebanese cuisine at restaurants.

Nshima is the most important staple food among Zambians in Southern Africa. It is cooked from plain maize, corn meal or maize flour and has the consistency of mashed potatoes. It has always been the basis of life in Zambia for as far back in history as people can remember. It is closely tied to the culture of the people in Zambia and there are lots of legends, folk tales, songs, customs, rituals and gestures of hospitality surrounding this dish.

The meal is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At breakfast it is cooked with milk and sugar and usually made thin. While for other meals it is complemented with a meat and a vegetable side dish and eaten thicker. Zambians are generally raised to believe that only Nshima constitutes a full and complete meal; any other food eaten in-between is regarded either as a snack or a temporary and inadequate substitute. If you meet a Zambian late in the afternoon and ask him if he has eaten, he will most likely tell you that he hasn’t eaten all day although he might have had a sandwich, peanuts and other stuff.

The traditional making of maize or corn meal is demanding and labour intensive. The proliferation of diesel-run hammer mills has helped in relieving the rural Zambian women of the hard manual labour. The aim of the whole process is to make a white corn meal that will cook into a smooth nshima. Depending on the urgency and work plan of every individual woman, the whole process might take anywhere from three to 10 days. Most women will start the process of making new corn meal when there is just a week’s supply of corn meal left in the house. The dish is eaten with ndiwo, which is a deliciously cooked vegetable, meat, fish or poultry dish and resembles a relish.

Zambian recipes tend to be bland and hardly use any hot spices. However, they use other traditional ingredients and spices that give Zambian foods that distinctively unique taste and flavour. Meats used in this relish include beef, mutton, deer, buffalo, poultry and oxtail. They add various green vegetables to the meat like cabbage, pumpkin leaves and rape, which is a spinach-like leafy vegetable. Peanuts are an important ingredient in most Zambian relishes, and are ground and cooked with vegetables like spinach.

Zambia's many lakes and rivers provide plenty of fish, including kapenta which is a small sardine-like fish, which thrives in Lake Kariba. It is dried, fried and made into a relish that is popularly eaten with nshima.

As Zambia is mostly a rural country, there are not many local chefs in the true meaning of the word. Mostly everything related to preparation of food is done by women. Because nshima is eaten everyday by the people, the ndiwo served with it is the only thing that brings variation to everyday meals. Finding a different type of ndiwo or relish for each day’s meals is one of the most demanding tasks for all mothers and housewives in Zambia and challenges a woman’s creativity every day. Zambians take their meal times seriously and always sit together as a family to eat.

They traditionally use hands while eating and preferably the right hand is used. When you are a guest in a Zambian’s house, refusing to eat is considered rude unless you are close acquaintances or good friends with your host. Even if you are full, you always have to eat everything the host puts on your plate; else it is considered impolite."Do not look at a visitor's face but at his stomach" is a popular proverb used throughout the country.