Food and Shopping

A few of you have asked me about how shopping and food in Zambia compare to the US. In both cases, the answer varies. In Lusaka a person can find groceries and meals that are remarkably similar to those back home, or the more traditional Zambian diet and shopping style can be used instead.

Zambians will eat a variety of staple foods including rice, bread, pasta, and different root crops (cassava, potatoes). However, their favorite staple food by far is nshima, made from mealie meal – very finely ground white maize (corn). Nshima has the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. It is shaped into lumps that are eaten with the hands and dipped into various dishes (called relishes) of meat or vegetables. Many Zambians don’t consider that they have eaten a meal unless nshima was included. I find this fascinating since corn is originally from the Americas. The relishes I see most often include chicken cooked in various sauces, tomatoes, onions, carrots, squash, and various greens. Zambians are also quite fond of tomato sauce (ketchup) and salt. I know several Zambians that suffer from high blood pressure, and I wonder if their diet is a factor.

The traditional way of shopping for the food to cook these meals is to go to a local market (see photo). Each neighborhood has a designated market area that includes a block of small covered stalls with walking paths between them. These markets will sell all the basic groceries in one area, meat in another, and then other household items and clothes in other sections. It is like going to a Middle Eastern souk, except smaller, less permanent looking (in most cases, but the bigger City Market in town is an exception) and not as clean. Bargaining is expected, and quite good prices are possible. There are also plenty of opportunities to buy goods right on the street. On a neighborhood side street, someone is likely to have set up a small stall in front of their house (or someone else’s) or in some cases they have built windows through their property walls with a small shop on the other side. These shops and stalls generally all sell the same often needed items such as salt, rice, mealie meal, vegetable oil, biscuits (cookies), tea, and laundry soap.

If you have the money to spend, however, supermarket shopping is also possible. There are about six large supermarkets in town and there are also smaller grocery stores in most neighborhoods. The selection at even the largest markets tends not to be quite as good as in the US, but it is certainly sufficient. You can buy about 12 different kinds of breakfast cereal instead of 60. You can buy a variety of produce, with the more local items being lower in cost. It is clear that some local tastes are different than what I am used to. I could only find one kind of parmesan cheese, and it was really expensive. There also can be problems caused by the fact that this is a land locked country that is dependent upon imported goods (often from South Africa) that have to travel on bad roads across multiple borders to get here. One time I went to both supermarkets in the area I usually travel to look for paper towels. Both were totally out.

The two supermarkets I frequent are found in large shopping plazas that are also quite western. They contain coffee shops, clothing shops, book shops, and the internet cafes that I have come to depend on. One also has a four screen movie theater (which has been a blessing on some of the hotter days) and a bowling alley. Both also contain fast food restaurants. Zambians are quite fond of fried chicken, and pizza, burgers, and curry can also be purchased. Both of these malls even have Subway sandwich shops. I haven’t yet succumbed to this temptation, but it looks like they serve the same stuff as back home.

Probably most significant to me is the close proximity of these older and newer shopping economies. Just outside one big shopping mall, there is a traffic intersection where people will pass between the cars when the light is red and try to sell you a huge variety of goods including cell phones, pirated DVD’s, okra, chickens, and puppies. By the bus stop in the same area, there are usually a couple of small stands (just tables made from scrap wood) where people are selling hard candy and fruit to the bus passengers and a booth with a pay phone and someone selling talk-time for cell phones.