Food in Zanzibar

Hi there! It’s Michaela writing. Today is February 27, which means we’ve been here for almost two months, so we’re two-thirds through our stay on Zanzibar. I’ve wanted to write a post about the food on Zanzibar for a while now, but I figured we would experience more with time so I would have more to write about. I can tell you right now that Zanzibar has given me the best food and drink experiences of my life, and it’s definitely on the top of my list of things I am going to miss about this place. But first, I’d like to give a quick update on what life is like here and what we’ve been up to since Floriaan wrote last time.

Living in Zanzibar is always with a great mixture of emotions. The good things are incredibly good; except for the food there’s also the view of the ocean, the palm trees, the perfect African sunsets and the people who are so relaxed, super-social and always smiling. The bad things can be very frustrating, but over the past few weeks we have had fewer problems than in the beginning. Now we don’t have to buy new lab equipment anymore and it’s harder for people to scam us for money now that we have lived here long enough to know what things should really cost. I used to have nightmares and panic attacks, caused by anti-malaria medication, but these come very rarely now which is a relief. The apartment we live in has the best location possible; close to all the best tourist shops, the best restaurants and only a ten-minute walk from the market. Close to our place is a diving school, where I’m taking a course, and also an old fort where one week Africas biggest music festival – Sauti Za Busara – was held. Last week we took a day off our work and went to Bawe Island for some snorkeling in the coral reef there, it was even more beautiful than the reef at Prison Island. So there are always many things to do here.

Another good thing is that the research project is doing a lot better now. Two weeks ago finally, FINALLY, after half our stay on Zanzibar, we managed to do sampling at two sites (Mbweni and Chwaka bay) which means we finished two out of the ten we originally planned to do here and we have now started with lab work. Before, when we didn’t have any lab work to do, we used to spend our days running errands around town and relaxing at the many beach-side or roof-top restaurants close to our apartment.  The prices at the restaurants here are lower than in Sweden (a main course costs around 8 euros), but the food is infinitely better.

The Zanzibar kitchen is mostly famous for the many spices they use; the most important one is clove which adds a great taste to their tea. The many spices are mainly used to season their stews which are made with fresh seafood, chicken, mutton or beef (pork is basically inexistent on Zanzibar) and served with fried rice or pilau rice. The locals cook mainly on charcoal grills which add a wonderful smell to the streets, especially when they make red curry chicken skewers. It is very simple, down-to-earth cheap food they cook, and they have the luxury of always having fresh tropical fruits and vegetables grown completely without pesticides which makes us very happy. The fruits have also given me the best drink experiences of my life since the juices are always fresh-made. This makes the cocktails amazing and the coconut-drinks are not only for show, they’re very tasty!

When we decide to cook at home we always start by taking a walk across town to the market. The market is a very vibrant place with various sounds and smells. The prices are generally very low and the taste of the fresh mangos, pineapples, passion fruits, watermelons, papayas, limes, chilies, green peppers and cucumbers cannot be compared with the ones we get in Europe.

The food at the restaurants is very tourist-friendly with many Indian courses to choose from and some Chinese food. At one of the Indian restaurants here I tasted the best coconut curry ever which had one piece of extremely strong chili which made us all cry. Since one-third of the tourists here is Italian, pizza and pasta are also very easy to come by and there’s an Italian restaurant by the beach that serves genuine Italian ice-cream. We’ve heard about many other good restaurants close by, but still we haven’t tried them all.

We eat out almost every day, mostly for dinner, but the restaurants have excellent breakfasts and lunches too. Here’s an example of what I usually order and an example of what I could order when we go out:

Breakfast/brunch: Spanish omelet with grilled tomato and flatbread toast and spice tea. Or: Fruit salad (mango, watermelon etc.) with yoghurt, müsli and a glass of juice.

Lunch: Grilled sweet baby squid salad with bread buns and a side of fried vegetables. Or: Juicy tuna burger with French fries and a tomato and coriander salsa.

Drinks for watching sunset: Banana and passion smoothie. Or: Kilimanjaro beer.

Dinner: Grilled seafood platter with rock lobster, crab claws, calamari, octopus and prawns. Or: Chicken coconut curry with fried rice and chapatti bread.

(Tuna and prawns is NOT sustainable food, but here it’s very hard to avoid)

Floriaan mentioned in the last post a dinner we made with barracuda. It is now my favorite dish of all time and it’s better than any food I ever tasted in any country. We all like it so much we now repeat that same dinner every other week. Today we had home-made calamari curry for dinner, and I think we’re going to try many more interesting things during our last month too. All the food experiences I’ve had here on Zanzibar have inspired me a lot and I think I’m going to return from here as a much better cook than I was before.