Botswana
Botswana at Rachel’s!
April 3rd - 2022
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Rachel - Dikgobe
Stacy - Chicken Groundnut Stew
Jess - Bay Leaf Meat
Genevieve - Xababa Diphaphata + Botswana Sausage
The cuisine of Botswana is unique but shares some characteristics with other cuisines of Southern Africa. Examples of Setswana food include pap, samp, vetkoek, bogobe and mophane worms. A food unique to Botswana is seswaa, salted mashed-up meat.
Watermelons are believed to have originated in Botswana. Other foods include morogo wa dinawa, madila and dikgobe.
It makes Batswana proud to have their own type of food. Batswana get most of the relish locally. These include beef, goat meat, sheep, tswana chicken, Mophane worms and fish. Batswana also make home made refreshing drinks using water melon, morula and ginger powder. At weddings, sorghum meal is usually cooked and mixed with melon and this mixture is called Bogobe jwa lerotse. Usually the melon is pre prepared with sour milk and stored to be used whenever needed. Batswana are also good in food preservation. Among others they preserve meat by cutting it into small lengths like strings then dry it. When meat is like this, it is called digwapa. They also fetch bean leaves, cook and dry them. It is also common among Batswana to make Mageu from leftover porridge or pap. Some tribes also preserve not very bad or rotten meat by drying it to be used as relish for a long time. This type of meat is called Mokungwana. Other food prepared during weddings are samp mixed with beans or cooked without beans and eaten with pounded meat called Seswaa. Batswana value their food from time immemorial. They consider it as part of their culture just like clothes and language.