Food!!!

Food in Botswana can be both the same and different as in the US. On the whole its very good. Going grocery shopping here is exactly the same as in the US. The two grocery stores at Riverwalk (which are nicer than FroGro btw) have all the same things we do, even some of our brands (they have skippy peanut butter but, alas, only the chunky kind). They also have Tim Tams! There’s this sauce here called Peri-Peri sauce that we’ve all become addicted to. You use it on chicken and things. Its spicy and tangy and delicious. It was first brought here by a chain restaurant called Nando’s, which claims that the sauce is Portuguese. Either way, its wildly popular here and Peri-Peri chicken is the best culinary surprise of the trip so far.

At lunch time one of my favorite things about main mall is that my meal never costs me more than the equivalent of about $2.50. One of my favorite things to get are pies, which are kind of like British meat pies but much better. They have meat, vegetables, and sauce within a croissant like bread. They have a chicken per-peri one which is my fave. However they have a lot of different other ones, like vegetable curry which is really good too.

I also surprisingly like some of the traditional food I’ve tried. I actually really like pap, which is pounded cornmeal or maize, its basically fufu. That’s like a staple here and looks like potatoes or grits. It has like no taste and a lot of Americans don’t like the consistency but I like it. They also make very good chicken here and they have this pounded/shredded beef that’s absolutely amazing. They also gook beans really well too. But they also eat different parts of the animal I wouldn’t normally go for. Tripe (cow intestines and colon) is a delicacy here and they love it. But when I’ve seen it before it’s always been white. Here Carol told me they just take it, boil it, and add some salt. The product is green, which is a little off putting and I have yet to work up the nerve to try it. They also like eating pigs/cows feet, hearts, and liver. Hearts and liver I’ve both seen before, but I’m not a very big fan.

Fruit on the other hand is great here, especially the juice. Its all pure juice with no sugar added and its 100 times better than any juice in the states. They also have good tea called Bush tea that's red and amazing :)