Food in Botswana

The food in Botswana is very different from the food in the United States. I am going to break down what Batswana (Batswana are people from Botswana, Motswana is a single person from Botswana) eat based on the different food groups.

Starches:

Batswana eat a lot of starch. The main types of starch that are eaten with meals are:

o   Setampa: grounded corn.

o   Dikgobe: setampa mixed with beans.

o  Phaleche: stiff, white millet porridge eaten for dinner; eaten with your fingers (you should only use one hand!) and used to scoop up the food on your plate.

o   Bogobe: stiff, brown sorghum porridge eaten for dinner; also eaten with your fingers

o   Motogo wa mabele: soft sorghum porridge, eaten for breakfast, typically mixed with milk and sugar; Batswana like to eat phaleche with sour milk.

o   Motogo wa phaleche: soft millet porridge, eaten for breakfast, typically mixed with milk and sugar.

o   Rice

o   Ma fresh: Homemade French fries!

o   Pumpkin: this is usually served cubed and boiled in water.

                                                        Setampa

While I love to eat carbohydrates, I am having trouble with the amount of starch eaten here. Meals typically consist of at least half of a plate full of starch, served with a small piece of meat and some vegetables. Setampa, phaleche and bogobe are very heavy starches. And, after eating meals here I feel very full for about an hour, and then I am hungry again.

Vegetables:

·      Cabbage: Batswana typically eat cabbage boiled, and with a little oil on it.

·      Beetroot

·     Salad: Salads in Botswana are what Americans would think of as coleslaw. Their “salads” are shredded cabbage or carrots in mayonnaise.  Batswana love mayonnaise and I have even had potatoes in mayonnaise. Batswana use spicy mayonnaise in their salads, as opposed to the plain Hellmann’s mayonnaise I am used to in America.

·      Carrots

·      Rape: A leafy green that resembles shredded spinach.

·  Other vegetables such as mushrooms, zucchini, avocado, and eggplant available in supermarkets, but are more expensive depending on the season. 

Meat:

·    Seswa: it is meat (goat, cow or chicken) that has been pounded – bones and all! – into a consistency, that when it is finished, looks like pulled pork. It is delicious. However, you do have to be careful when eating seswa because biting into bone is not fun.

·      Batswana typically eat goat or cow meat. Chicken is available, although it is more expensive, and therefore less common at meals.

                                           Seswa and bogobe

My host mother, when cooking meat, tends to boil it in a pot. She then adds a little bit of oil, and fresh vegetables (onions, carrots and cabbage most often) to create a “stew” to flavor the meat with.  Meat always comes on the bone, and is typically very tough. For weddings, it is traditional for the husband’s family to pay a “bride price”. This is typically paid in the form of several cattle, which are slaughtered for the ceremony, and made into seswa. Fresh seswa is delicious. It is dripping with delicious meat fat, and is so tender it falls off of the bone.

Overall, food in Botswana is different from food in America. And while there are many foods here that I love to eat (motogo for breakfast, fresh seswa, beetroot), I am eager to get to my site and make food that I am familiar with, and go a little easy on the starches!