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Zambian food centres on one staple eaten at nearly every lunch and dinner, with the variety coming from the relish served alongside it rather than from the starch itself. With more than 70 tribes across the country, the cooking techniques and exact relish vary by region, but the plate itself, a mound of maize porridge next to a vegetable or meat sauce, is the same from a family kitchen in Lusaka to a lodge dining room near South Luangwa.
Nshima, the everyday staple
Nshima, a thick porridge made from maize flour, is the centrepiece of the Zambian meal, eaten at lunch and dinner and usually scooped up by hand with the right hand rather than a utensil. On its own it is bland by design: its job is to carry whatever relish sits next to it, so judge a meal by the relish, not by the nshima itself.
Relishes: greens, meat and fish
What turns nshima into a meal is the relish. Chibwabwa, a relish made from pumpkin leaves, and ifisashi, a stew of leafy greens and groundnuts that can be made with or without meat, are among the most common everyday versions, alongside delele (also spelled thelele), a green vegetable relish. Some traditional relishes are built with chidulo, an ash liquid made from burnt banana leaves, and kutendela, a groundnut powder, both used as flavouring or thickening agents rather than as dishes in their own right. Meat relishes range from ordinary beef, chicken or goat stews to more unusual proteins: kapenta, a small dried sardine, gizzards, stink bugs and mopane worms all appear on Zambian tables, so a relish described simply as “fish” or “protein” on a menu is worth asking about before you assume it means a fillet.
Street food and snacks
Street vendors and market stalls sell cassava and groundnuts as a simple snack, along with samosas filled with spiced vegetables and vitumbuwa, small balls of fried wheat dough similar to a doughnut. The most distinctive Zambian street food is chikanda, sometimes called African polony: it is made from the dried, ground tubers of wild orchids mixed with peanuts and chilli, then set into a firm, meat-free loaf and sliced. It looks and is sometimes eaten like a processed meat, but it contains none.
Drinks
Non-alcoholic options include thobwa, a drink made from millet or sorghum, munkoyo, a fermented drink brewed from a plant root, and maheu, made from fermented corn flour; all three are cloudy, mildly sour and closer to a thin porridge than a soft drink. On the alcoholic side, traditional maize beer is brewed at home and commercially, alongside Chibuku, a widely sold opaque commercial maize beer, and Mosi, a mainstream clear lager named after Mosi-oa-Tunya, the local name for Victoria Falls.
Practical tips
- Nshima and its relishes are the default meal almost everywhere, from township eateries to lodge dining rooms, so you do not need to seek out a particular restaurant type to try it.
- If a relish is described as fish, meat or protein without more detail, ask what it is: kapenta, gizzards and mopane worms are all common and are not always flagged as unusual on a menu aimed at locals.
- Chikanda contains no meat despite its texture and nickname (“African polony”), which is worth knowing if you are vegetarian or avoiding meat substitutes that mimic it too closely.
- Tap water is not considered reliably safe to drink untreated; stick to water that has been boiled, filtered or bottled, including for ice at informal stalls.
What to check before you go
- Whether your accommodation or safari package includes meals, or whether you will need to find a market or local eatery to try nshima and relish outside a lodge setting.
- Any allergies to groundnuts (peanuts), which flavour many everyday relishes and are a core ingredient of chikanda.
- Current food and water hygiene advice for your specific itinerary, since conditions vary between Lusaka, Livingstone and more remote safari areas.