Cooking Mozambican Style (Photo Journey)

What does it look like to cook Mozambican style?

I arrived at Mama R's house at 8:00am for my Kimwani cooking lesson. She set me to work pounding peanuts. What an arm workout that is! Usually, early morning is a bit cooler, but I was dripping in sweat after several minutes and I was nowhere near done. After pounding the peanuts I pounded leaves into a pulp. Do you know how long it takes to pound leaves into pulp? A long time.

After pounding the leaves, Mama R put them on to boil. Thankfully, she saw that I was tired and needed a break; she had me go home and rest while the leaves boiled.

When I came back, she told me to grate two coconuts in order to make coconut milk for both the rice and the Matapa we were making. 

I sat on the little bench and used the sharp, metal end to grate the coconut. Then I poured water over the coconut and squeezed out all of the coconut flavor to get coconut milk. I put half in a pot and put it over charcoal to boil before adding the rice.

Most women I know cook outside because it's too hot to cook inside and they only have little charcoal burners. Mama R has a little kitchen shack though. That's where I left the rice to boil while I went to finish the Matapa.

The other half of the coconut milk went into the leaves I had pounded earlier. Salt, garlic, and other seasonings were added in along with the peanuts I had pounded earlier in the morning. This created my favorite traditional Mozambican cuisine - Matapa! 

Around 1:00pm we finally had our finished Matapa and coconut rice. Everyone said it tasted great! I relished both the delicious food and the compliments. Cooking Mozambican style is no joke in the blazing sun, even harder with 90% of the instructions given in Kimwani.

This cooking lesson gave me a deeper appreciation for what the women here go through every single day. They are strong. Stronger than I can even imagine.