Visiting this year’s Processed Products Fair at the Harare show grounds rekindled some experiences I had in my late grandmother’s hut (kitchen). A small hut located in Chivi, warm and filled with love. The last time I was there was when I was still in primary school just before she passed on. The meals were not my favourite at that time. I always wanted to have some rice rather than any of those dried vegetables.

Back then I used to think that eating traditional foods like ‘sadza nemfushwa’ (sadza with dried vegetables) was a sign of poverty and that the food coffers were running dry. Only now do I understand the nutritional richness of these foods I once despised. Traditional meals contain the nutrients that we need whether one is living with the HIV virus or not. Many families in Zimbabwe are operating on shoestring budgets, opting to process their own traditional foods and eating these in the home, helping to cushion strained financial budgets.

The Processed Products Fair organised by a network of nine NGOs comes in handy in this day and age where most of the people of our generation do not know how to cook delicious traditional recipes. At the fair you can see the raw agricultural products, the processed product together with the recipe and, you’re allowed to taste! And if the food tickles your taste buds you can buy the raw products on sale and try cooking for the rest of the family at home.

This entry was posted on July 15th, 2011 at 4:04 pm by Elizabeth Nyamuda and is filed under Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.