African Great Lakes Ugali (when it is cooked as porridge, it is called uji) is served with sweet potatoes, ripe bananas, Irish potatoes and even bread. Solid ugali is usually served with traditional vegetables, stew or sukuma wiki (also known as collard greens). It is the most common
staple starch featured in the local cuisines of the
African Great Lakes region and
Southern Africa. When ugali is made from another starch, it is usually given a specific regional name. The traditional method of eating ugali (and the most common in rural areas) is to roll a lump into a ball with the right hand and then dip it into a sauce or stew of vegetables or meat. Making a depression with the thumb allows the ugali to scoop, and wrap around pieces of meat to pick them up in the same way that flatbread is used in other cultures. Leftover ugali can also be eaten with tea the following morning. Ugali is relatively inexpensive and thus easily accessible to the poor, who usually combine it with a meat or vegetable stew (for example,
sukuma wiki in
Kenya) to make a filling meal. Ugali is easy to make, and the flour can last for a considerable time in average conditions.
Ghana Sagtulga (Dagbani: saɣituliga, Hausa:
tuo zaafi), or
diehuo, is a popular main dish for the people of
Ghana. Sagtulga is a main meal eaten with soupy accompaniments such as okro soup. It is most common in the country's northern regions:
Northern,
Upper East, and
Upper West. The dish is usually eaten for dinner, yet some people (for example, farmers and manual workers) have it for breakfast or lunch. It is usually eaten with blended
Corchorus olitorius leaves (Dagbani:
salinvogu, Hausa:
ayoyo,
molokai) and okro (
Abelmoschus esculentus) with stew on the side. The dish consists of cooked maize dough with a little dried cassava dough and water without salt. Traditionally, it is prepared with
millet dough, which is indigenous to Ghana's north. It is mainly eaten with green
vegetable soup made from bitter leaves, or sometimes freshly pounded cassava leaves. It can be accompanied with a variety of soups, including okra and groundnut soup.
Kenya In
Luhya culture, it is the most common staple starch, but it is also a key part of Luhya wedding traditions;
obusuma prepared from millet (known as
obusuma bwo bule) was traditionally included among delicacies on a bride's high table.
Obusuma can also be prepared from other starches like sorghum or cassava (''obusuma bwo 'muoko
). Obusuma
is commonly served with tsimboka
, or etsiswa
, eliani
(vegetables), inyama
(meat), inyeni
(fish), thimena
(whitebait) or omrere
(jute leaves). For distinguished guests or visitors, it is usually served with ingokho'' (chicken). Ugali is prepared from ground white corn similar to how tamales are made from yellow corn in Central America. In most homes the ugali makes up most of the meal, with vegetables or meat as accompaniments. In wealthier homes, or for special occasions, the ugali is served with abundant savory vegetables and meats in spicy gravy. It resembles mashed potatoes served in American homes. In Kenya, a smidgen of thick ugali is grasped in hand and the thumb is depressed in the center to form a spoon for scooping—a form of edible silverware. While the thumb and fingers may get a bit messy with this method, the way of eating food is culturally significant in the region.
Malawi, Zambia es Nsima is a dish made from
maize flour (white
cornmeal) and water and is a
staple food in
Zambia (nsima/ubwali) and
Malawi (nsima). The maize flour is first boiled with water into a
porridge, and, in Zambia, left to simmer for a few minutes before it is 'paddled', to create a thick paste with the addition of more flour. This process requires the maker to pull the thick paste against the side of a pot with a flat wooden spoon (nthiko in Malawi, m'tiko/umwiko in Zambia) quickly whilst it continues to sit over the heat. Once cooked the resulting nshima/nsima is portioned using a wooden/plastic spoon dipped in water or coated in oil called a chipande (Malawi), and chipampa (Zambia). In Malawi each of these portions is called a ntanda. It is referred to as "pap" in Nigerian English. Ogi/akamu in Nigeria is generally accompanied with "
moin moin", a
bean pudding, or "
akara", which is a bean
cake. There is also the thicker variety, called eko among the Yorubas and agidi among the Igbos. The
pudding is cooked on heat until it is thick. It is traditionally wrapped in leaves with botanical name
Thaumatococcus daniellii. Yorubas call it
ewe eran while the Igbos call it
akwukwo elele.). Phuthu dishes are usually found in the coastal areas of South Africa. A variety of
savouries can be used to accompany pap, made from
green vegetables, and flavored with
chili. South Africans in the northern parts of South Africa eat it as the
breakfast staple, with
milk, butter, and
sugar, but also serve it with meat and
tomato stew (usually tomato and
onion) at other meals. When they have a
braai,
bogobe or
stywe (stiff) pap with a savoury sauce like tomato and onion or mushroom is an important part of the meal. Phutu pap is popularly served with
boerewors, a combination that later became known as
pap en wors (also called "pap en vleis", which can include other braaied or stewed meats). In the
Cape Province of South Africa, it is almost exclusively seen as a breakfast food. Since mielie-meal is inexpensive, poor people combine it with vegetables. It can be served hot or, after it has cooled, it can be
fried. Phutu porridge is sometimes eaten with
chakalaka as a side dish with braais. In the northern provinces pap is usually soft and made using a fermented maize batter, which prevents the pap from spoiling quickly given that northern provinces are much hotter than the south. Uphuthu is a South African method of cooking mielie-meal whereby the end product is a finely textured coarse grain-like meal which is typically eaten with an accompaniment of vegetables and meat in
KwaZulu-Natal and
Eastern Cape regions of South Africa or as the star of the dish with
amasi or maas in the
Gauteng regions. Some cultures add sugar to uphuthu and amasi to produce a sweet snack that resembles cereal; however, the corn-based stable is typically eaten as is with amasi. Phuthu or uphuthu (), also incorrectly spelled as putu or phutu, is a traditional preparation method of maize meal in
South African cuisine. It is a crumbly or grainy type of pap or porridge, eaten by most cultural groups in South Africa. Phuthu is often eaten with meat, beans, gravy and
sour milk. The texture and consistency of uphuthu is often a deciding factor in what dishes will accompany it. For example, amasi or maas is usually prepared with a more finely textured phuthu, whereas stews and curries are often served with a more clumped variety, leaning towards stiff-pap. Finely-textured phuthu has a tendency of being severely dehydrated (dry), depending on the cook's skill in working the dish. Such a severely dehydrated phuthu would often be served with stews, leafy vegetables, and many other savoury dishes containing moisture. Conversely, such dehydrated phuthu would not be suited to a dish of amasi or maas, because the steeping or soaking process would result in a paste-like dish, whereas amasi is preferred to be chewy.
Zimbabwe (
Domboshaba cultural festival 2017) Sadza in
Shona or isitshwala in
isiNdebele is a cooked
maize meal that is the
staple food in
Zimbabwe. Sadza is made with finely ground dry maize/corn
maize (
mealie-meal). This maize meal is referred to as in
Ndebele or in Shona. Despite the fact that maize is an imported food crop to Zimbabwe (c. 1890), it has become the chief source of
carbohydrate and the most popular meal for indigenous people. Locals either purchase the mealie meal in retail outlets or produce it in a grinding
mill from their own maize.
Zimbabweans prefer white maize meal. However, during times of
famine or hardship, they resorted to eating yellow maize meal, which is sometimes called "Kenya", because it was once imported from
that nation. Before the introduction of maize, sadza was made from
mapfunde finger millet. In recent times, young people in Zimbabwe tend to prefer rice to sadza or isitshwala. The Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) National Chairman Tafadzwa Musarara commented that the future working class will be eating less sadza and more rice and bread as alternatives. Sadza is typically served on individual plates, but traditionally sadza was eaten from a
communal bowl, a tradition that is still maintained by some families mainly in the rural areas. It is generally eaten with the right hand without the aid of cutlery, often rolled into a ball before being dipped into a variety of condiments such as
sauce/
gravy,
sour milk, or
stewed
vegetables. Notable foods eaten with sadza include: Meat is known as
nyama in Shona. •
Red meat – includes
beef,
mutton, goat and
game meat •
Cow hoof – mazondo, amanqgina •
Oxtail • Other foods including intestine (
tripe),
offal, zvemukati (includes mathumbu, maphaphu, isibindi, utwane, ulusu, umbendeni; in Shona known as matumbu), sun-dried vegetables known as mfushwa and many more •
White meat – includes huku – chicken meat, fish •
Fish (hove in Shona), including the small dried fish
kapenta •
Mopane worms/madora – edible moth caterpillar •
Spring greens – known as imibhida in the Ndebele language, muriwo in the Shona language •
Sugar beans – known as nyemba in Shona •
Cabbage •
Derere –
okra •
Cleome gynandra (ulude in Ndebele)/nyevhe in Shona •
Pumpkin – leaves known as muboora in Shona •
Soured milk natural yogurt (known as
amasi in Ndebele or
Nguni languages in
South Africa, mukaka wakakora in
Shona, or lacto) •
Soya chunks • Soups and stews == Similar dishes ==