UnKNOWN African Food in Zimbabwe!! From Strange to Street Food!! (Full Documentary)

so there's two parts to this there's blood and then the fat do we eat the fat or is that for flavor you eat the fat as well how many times have you tried this zimbabwe it's a country i know nothing about what the hell is this really that's wild but i'm about to get a crash course [Music] oh my god [Music] right now i'm in the countryside a couple hours from the capitol fan of the show has invited me to a once in a lifetime event a celebration of life in honor of her late mother this is super dangerous right it is a day steeped in tradition punctuated with alcohol really traditional singing and a lot of food that's a lot of meat and you've never seen food like this i don't know if this cow shaved its legs mine didn't i'm on a mission to witness some of the most unique intense flavors you'll find anywhere in southern africa that's like life it all starts here [Applause] [Music] [Music] this is home to members of the zeruru tribe one of the five major branches of the shona people who make up the largest ethnic group in zimbabwe so what are they doing right now they are celebrating the cow that's just coming to the house it's a gift to my mother meet gracia bavute a self-trained chef and local entrepreneur she also enjoys my show enough to have invited me here today where i'll witness family and community coming together to honor her late mother and what's going to happen next they're going to give thanks and then slow to account get ready for the cooking and all that so i see a cow and a coat yes so they're both on the menu they are definitely oh wow that's a lot of meat are there gonna be more people coming today just uh the villagers around definitely will hear the singing and the celebrations and they'll be curious so they'll definitely come through and these meet so we're gonna have a lot of people there this tradition is called moment literal translation cow of motherhood it's the shona people's version of bride price traditionally upon marriage the husband would present a fertile cow to the wife's mother it's a payment to compensate for the pain of the bride's family when the husband takes her away to his village gracia's father had not yet gifted the cow and now in the wake of her passing it will be shared with the entire family all right so it's starting now okay they just slip the throat and they're saving the blood are we gonna eat them we're gonna enjoy it i know i am are you yeah okay great they removed all the blood what are they going to do with them they're going to take out some of the fat from the cow and they use that to substitute the oil that you'd normally use and they'll just like fry it and it turns into like ground beef after the cow is dispatched members of the community begin butchering each piece is dedicated to a certain member of the family some is given away but much of it will be used for today's feast anytime a cow is slaughtered and served here a goat must go along with it as an introductory offer from the goat a delicacy is prepared fried goat's blood they start by rendering goat fat in oil add the fresh goat blood and season with salt this could technically qualify for one of rachel ray's 30-minute meals you'll know it's cooked when the blood becomes dark and solid this is our introductory meal for the day so this is goat blood goat fat and a little bit of oil a little bit of salt yeah and you know i like that i appreciate they didn't over spice it i really want to taste the full flavor of the blood so there's two parts to this there's blood and then the fat do we eat the fat or is that for flavor you eat the fat as well i think we start with the blood so the blood is almost boiled down to like a blood cake but let's have a cake in more of a crumble no it looks like liver yeah it looks a little bit liberating so i'm gonna grab a couple of pieces here and just throw it back cheers okay good man tastes better than i thought like a liver with like onions right sometimes it tastes like liver because both the blood and the liver have like the mineral taste and so i can see why you would say that but i like the texture of it it's like wisconsin cheese curds kind of a little bit but here this is the fat and no one chops out a lot okay i'm just going to try like yeah rip off a piece yeah all right cheers i like the blood i don't like the fat it's gummy and i keep chewing and nothing's happening it's full of flavor though and i could see him i've been drinking since 6am and i need some flavor and some salt to go with all the beer this would be great i want to ask you more about today and why we're here today so um when i was shown a culture when a female is married the husband is paying for the wife to the wife's parents even today many cultures around the world still practice bride price this doesn't indicate the man is paying for the woman rather it's a symbolic gesture acknowledging the husband's permanent debt to the bride's parents one of the last things that you should pay is the cow to thank the mother for taking care of your wife in the shona culture the debt is paid in the form of cattle so that cow might come through when the person is late that's finishing off the payment for the person because they're no longer there today is the day that my father has to finish off the payment for his wife we're just getting started there's a lot more to come today from here they're going to cook a lot of food it's going to be drinking eating and a lot of music i can hear in the background so we're gonna be trying a lot more food what's your favorite part i think definitely the intestines and and the tribe okay fantastic i'm now looking forward to that too also while it's customary everywhere to celebrate with food you may have noticed here that alcohol has also made an appearance my man how's it going good good this is richie gracia's uncle what are you drinking i'm drinking beer hey that does not look like any beer i've seen before it's white this is a traditional shona beer called huahua it looks and tastes nothing like beer that's because it's usually made by fermenting corn or sorghum can i smell it smelling nice oh it's so nice so there's a lot of people here and there's a lot of work who is drinking who is working this one is drinking and this one is drinking this one is drinking and then who does the work our waves how many wives do you have i've got one but one is with my brother i put four [Music] in this village traditional gender roles are embraced on this day in particular women are in charge of the cooking and the men are in charge of slaughtering and well drinking lots and lots of drinking all right so the women cook we drink what we well i would like to drink too cheers very nice oh it's really delicious yeah it's really thick it's sour it's almost like vinegar and alcohol mixed all right thank you so much for letting me try that i feel a little buzzed but i'm gonna drink some water i think i'll be okay thank you preparations for the feast are underway right now they're making something called saza this is cornmeal mixed with water and they just have to mix the heck out of it otherwise there's going to be lumps and inconsistencies so they have to keep it all the same kind of texture it is a real labor of love here you need some serious lat strength to pull this off do you need help do you want to tap out oh he's good perfect [Music] it's actually harder than it looks oh my gosh i'm going to buy you guys an industrial sized mixer this is a lot of hard work the lactic build up is too much someone come on all right finally we need someone with fresh arms she's obviously a lot stronger than me and she's got technique working in her favor zaza is the main source of calories in many sub-saharan countries it's usually made from a simple mixture of water and corn flour but it can also be made with millet cassava or sorghum oh this stick is so short all right i'm trying to copy her how do you know when it's finished it's finished oh good timing party update this is one of the wildest most interesting kind of impromptu parties i've ever been to there is not exactly a sense of urgency but behind me rain cloud soon at any moment the rain is going gonna come pouring down and then i'm not sure what cause there's people cooking outside so we're gonna see what happens all i'm saying is it is 3 16 p.m and they've cooked about five percent of the cow so far good start we've got some momentum i can say that we've got some momentum let's see where this takes us communal events like this are a delicate balance of work and play either you're carefully laboriously preparing the food so others can eat or you're drinking your face off so far the drinking is winning out while i have serious doubt in this feast coming to fruition on the events periphery you'll see pockets of men cleverly grilling small bits of meat far from the masses i've noticed so far it's not exactly everybody working together to make a feast that happens at one time some people are grabbing meat and they've gone to the side they've gone to the corner here to cook up their own food away from everybody else so that's what this is here is this beef yeah it is the stomach area of the cow and this is the cow blood yeah this is a different preparation yeah they didn't put the oil or the fat all right so i don't think we're gonna try that because it's not quite done yet but could we try some of this meat yeah this one hello sir could you meet me oh thank you you know what you could just bite it there you go rip it off it's good right [Music] it's salty it tastes like someone was trying to preserve it in case there was like another y2k but overall i like it i think this one mixed perfectly with beer which i think is what people are doing here yeah my impression at least of today's event is that it's not all building up to one big feast it seems like cooking needs to be done but everyone just kind of wants to drink and hang out and no one really wants to cook that's exactly what's happening so we don't even know what we're gonna walk away with today like we might eat something this might be it yeah fantastic so this is good it's a nice little snack but hopefully we build up into some kind of a meal or something more we can try soon also your uncle do you think i could do a dance contest with him i think so i would want to see that all right let's make that is on him all right let's do it [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] i cannot believe we haven't been rained out yet i mean i've just been seeing rain clouds everywhere but they're going around us the food gods are with us today everything's coming together here they're starting to serve people up so we have the satsang i somewhat helped make that it's looking pretty good to me guys what do you think but here we have something i've never seen before is this also a sad song it is made from sorghum sorghum what is sorghum it feels like an ingredient you would have on oregon trail it is actually a grain that we also have here and it's a very small brown very tiny seed does it taste different from the corn sauce it's a very different and the thickness this one is more sticky than the white saucer what if we tried some right now i'll live life in one spontaneous moment this entire festive crowd becomes silent this type of reaction could only be elicited from one individual the village chief right now the chief is making a speech for the whole crowd here i have no idea what he's saying [Music] what was that so apparently the chief has been hearing that people have been just asking for stuff so he was just saying when you're invited to an event at least have the courtesy to respect the people that are there and stop harassing people he just put an end to that yeah he did with his word will that stop yeah i think so i like this guy i like him too can we try some sansa usually you would eat this with other food right yeah you would i'm dying to try it right now just plain is that okay yeah that's fine it's sticky so it's like malto meal yeah it is my first sorghum bite i'm very excited i'm a bit of a sorghum virgin let's go very fine and um not much flavor at all it makes sense it's kind of a carbohydrate and with that you mix in all the different meats than the other food yeah and then the flavor really kicks in of everything else so this is just like um i mean the rice tastes it's incredible the rain is coming now the food's almost done we've got sorghum we should go find a dry place to eat probably all right let's do it [Music] this is a beautiful scene like somehow the food got done in time it's raining we got people under a tent people under a tree everyone's just taking refuge somewhere and eating and we're about to do the same can you give me a little tour of what's going on here obviously we've got the salsa and this is the tank looks great for this dish the cow's tongue is first removed from its head it's doused with boiling hot water and the outer skin is peeled away scrape off any hairs then chop it up and boil [Applause] finish with diced onions and tomatoes well i think i have the literal tip of the top right here let's do it oh oh oh that is tough uh-huh i think it needs to be boiled a little more i think so this is so chewy yeah is it supposed to be that top i don't think so now i think this is a little bit undercooked i think what would make it a little easier to eat is if it was cut into little pieces but i like the taste they haven't put a ton of seasonings on it so you're actually really tasting the true tongue itself it's very beefy i like it let's talk about this what is going on in here this is just the cow's feet the feet oh and the legs too right yeah it's nice to see that nothing from this animal has gone to waste including the cow's feet they're chopped and boiled for hours add oil to a pot and add the feet and looks like there's some ankles in there too toss in some diced onions tomatoes and a little bit of foot broth let me grab a piece right now oh yeah so this is like a shin but it's become very gelatinous all right let's try it out okay wow it's like tendon it's so rich and fatty and heavy i like it i like the inside here i mean i don't even know what those parts are it's just really gelatinous it reminds me of tendon and it actually might be tender because in vietnam beef noodles it has tendon in there like this and it's like my favorite part that is so cool i think like people here would absolutely love it because i think that's the part they also really love now for the staple you'll find in most every zimbabwean meal this sad song with the saadza we can use that to soak up the soup yeah definitely show me the way so people kind of like mold it into like a little bowl and then after that you make a little dent in oh like a divot so that you can actually scoop up some stuff and then uh don't get it on your dress um all right here we go oh it's tomatoing really rich not too salty or anything but the essence of the cow is very powerful i like it our final bite is something special and not for the faint of heart tripe or cow stomach and intestines get a big pot and add oil then add the organs and pray that whoever cleaned them is detail oriented as the meat cooks and softens toss in some diced onions and a generous pinch of salt let's end with the tribe grab a piece that's a good piece that one looks like a carpet this one looks like honeycomb in my culture we actually differentiate these two we call these bibles like the actual jesus christ bible yeah i know that one and these ones are just like normal tribes so some people might not even eat these and like these ones because they're more soft yeah well now i feel like i should be eating that [Music] how you doing it's the same every time i eat these it's like life i gotta say it's pretty good the texture in your mouth is interesting because it's a little carpety it smells gamey but then the flavor is just rich fatty you taste the tomatoes and onions from the broth i like it this was delicious super unique and just an incredible experience to be a part of i'm so appreciative that you invited us here today because usually we fake these things and we pretend there's an event but there's not but this is really an event did today go how you expected it it's been a great experience and like also having you here is amazing i really love how you have been blending into our culture and appreciating every step and wanting to learn like that's been amazing for me as well same for me it's not hard to blend in i also love to drink and so these are my people wait does that sound bad [Music] today i'm on a mission to soak in local flavors and a unique way of life you won't experience anywhere else this place is crazy all right i told you sunny it was gonna be amazing from street side dishes and protein combinations you've never seen before what's wrong the realization to a meat lover's dream a drive-in barbecue on an absolutely massive scale how do you even get out of here without getting into a car accident you have to try today's food fun well that all starts [Music] [Music] here shopping center its founding goes back to 1977 with francis zindoga with his butchery and bottle storm now it looks like this one of the capitals major food hubs with tons to choose from come drink eat drink more and hopefully take a cab home yesterday ferrari local grassy introduced me to her family outside the city and right now she's introducing me to cheapo my name is sunny and this is gracia cheapo is the manager of big man bry a meaty street stall influenced by south african barbecue right now you're preparing a dish this is called gongo is a favorite in zimbabwe but this is not a one-person plate of food we usually save in a tray and everyone digs in from the same plate it's a platter of protein meant to be shared with friends or family it's more like something that brings us closer together communal food reminds me of korean barbecue a little bit the foundation of the recipe is an incomprehensible mix of meat ox kidney and beef are added to a wok with water and salt on the side chicken gizzards that are cleaned chopped and added in is this going to be a stool or what will this be basically we don't want it to be as chew the main reason behind it is that we get to fry all these and then add our vegetables and then our chilies then chicken neck feet and thigh add more water and allow it to cook down a bit it seems like a lot of street food here is meat yeah mainly the meat because this area it specializes in gochugauchi or bry which is just basically barbecue and meat our parade of protein continues heart pork belly spicy pork sausage then a bit of cooking oil and diced onions and tomatoes finally the green well cheapo can tell you what it's called we call them rape are you saying the word rape [Music] how do you say it it's a rape city that's how they call it r-a-p-e yeah there's no way around that hit it with a bit of spice and dig in with six of your closest friends [Music] all right we have our meal right here this looks even better than i thought it would oh we're eating with our hands aren't we yeah definitely no one brought forks there's forks in here right these are the forks i think we should start with pork belly just covered with rape all right let's try it out the r word is definitely like a spinach or something where there's still some texture to it while you're eating it it's not just dissolved away i see there are hearts it tastes really good it almost tastes buttery salty and then some nice spice coming from the chilies i think this is the ox kidney over here this tastes like liver they both have that minerality right because it filtering uh you know all your stuff and turning it into peeps why are you saying pee when i'm eating it city oh um not pin sausage well seasoned it's got a kick of spiciness in it as well i think i've got a geez in here oh super chewy delicious i love that it's such a random hodgepodge of different ingredients but when they cook it all together it works perfectly okay saad's up this just doesn't have a lot of flavor so you have to kind of add flavor to it by putting in the meat and the veggies so you do that little spoon thing again way ahead of you oh i see you're learning singing what is that are you schmingle cheers it tastes like chicken heart with a base of mashed potatoes that have no salt or butter inside now chicken feet everyone around the world has a different way of eating it let me see your way okay you try to strip it away but sometimes the toes will rip off okay no they didn't oh you know what's gnarly about this this is my first time eating chicken feet with the toenails they're still on there let me try it it hasn't been cooked that long so the meat's still kind of hard so you have to really work to get it off but once you do it's nice and chewy like some kind of calamari sunny i wanted to ask you more about harare did you grow up here yeah i did born and raised in harare why do you think zimbabwe isn't more known globally we have a lot of beautiful places in zibabras apart from victoria falls that everybody else knows we have inyanga montopoulosi hills where you actually get like scenic views that are so beautiful but i feel like there hasn't been enough of coverage on what our country has to offer another problem that we might be having is people of our generation we don't speak a lot of positive about our country if we learn to embrace our culture more definitely people will end up knowing about zimbabwe and falling in love with it and people wanting to come and see what zimbabwe has to offer i got to say i've just been here a day and a half but i'm loving it so far great so with that being said this is a great start we have a lot more street food to eat let's go well ashley how are you doing this is your place yes it's fantastic just 30 steps away tucked inside a small alley miss ashley is preparing another zimbabwean staple one i've never seen before right here in the first pot this is rice but it's not any kind of rice it's a brown rice and it's turned brown because it's been mixed with peanut butter something i've never had before but i love peanut butter next the beef bones so these are big thick chunks of cow femur the bones are boiled in a big pot for at least two hours or until people start asking for that toss in some salt and tomatoes and boil it a bit more is this rape yes it's also a peanut butter yes oh that's great ashley yes thank you so much i'm dying to try this i love peanut butter i like it it's not a super strong peanut taste it lacks the sweetness that our peanut butter has because uh in the us we like to put sugar in peanut butter no everything it's interesting because the rice has been cooked so much that it's become kind of a mash with just a hint of peanut flavor on top of that and it seems like it'd go well with these two i really like that vegetable so it's hot steaming juicy and then i would say between cabbage and spinach but now with a hint of peanut flavor in there too is that something local to this country they're one of the dishes that you get at traditional functions like traditional weddings even if grandmother comes from the village you're probably gonna get some peanut butter vegetables this is cowboy it's all just like this meat you're supposed to kind of gnaw off um wow yeah this does take some effort okay so here is a nice piece of protein you got some there too yeah let's go for it [Music] it's a bit chewy but still juicy and it tastes like a beef roast or just kind of like stewed beef but that is in the middle of cooking that's just a pure piece of fat it's a bit rich but actually it's very flavorful ashley you're crushing it how do you say delicious in the local languages the way you're saying it is i taste good i taste delicious this also pretty good [Music] whenever lunchtime hits this place becomes a hive of activity vendors prepare for the midday rush with stacks of grilled and fried chicken ready to send out at a moment's notice as people gather in crowds form a couple of entertainers come to capitalize on the moment the crowd's welcoming response is a sign they've seen this type of show before and they're looking forward to more so right behind me is zimbabwean entertainment the best you're going to get they come here they have a whole list of tricks and things that they do and they work for chips if new york has buskers singing for cash then harare has these guys stand up slapstick [Applause] and some impressive yet slightly revolting strange human tricks oh my god that's a condom oh [Music] if that didn't make you lose your appetite well let me tell you about our next food [Music] my man how are you doing i'm good how are we doing i'm with the pit master he's manhandling this meat right here this whole place is famous for its chicken we've got chicken that's cooked we got chicken in little pieces this chicken stall pre-marinates their meat with madras curry powder and mixed chicken spices oh it's so hard how do you do it you're not crying or anything i've been crying the whole day but for personal reasons not related to the smoke lightly grill cut it into smaller pieces and toss it in hot oil so it's just like a shallow fry there's not even a lot of oil the only issue now is he's got to stop the fire he's gonna get this fire going the rest of the chicken is going in the oil and we're gonna eat some fried chicken soon i can't wait can you wait she said yes she said yes [Music] this place is wild yes it is so what is the name of this place this is another area from the place that we just come from and here they do more of barbecue on a larger scale so you've got more options to choose from and definitely it's mainly chicken over here fried chicken it's not usually grilled and then fried but here it is yes it is this is what we call fried chicken here in sabah should we try it out yes i got skin here that's good oily fatty skin here's some of the drumstick well it's super heavy i like it though it's simple it's straightforward it's just salt really but it's interesting to see a little different style and as always it's served with the sadzak do people feel like a meal is incomplete without satsang certainly i think so when they do charge you for this meal usually they don't charge for the satay what they're charging you for is for the meats and salt is sort of like complimentary so if you were to say i don't want the salsa you're still gonna pay the same amount so you'd rather just you know half the sakura anyway we have one more location we're gonna go somewhere that even blows this place out of the water yes what's it called it is one of the most talked about places in zimbabwe and i'm so excited to take you there this place is crazy all right i told you sunny it was going to be amazing miraki is by far one of harares and this country's most popular open-air entertainment joints yes i had yama choma when i was in kenya but i've never seen anything like this the crowds the cars it's like a tailgate party that never goes to the game a rock concert where the main star is the meat that's delivered to your cause in all 300 people work to make this operation move from butchers to runners and pit masters they even have an ice cream guy oh he's turning around no no i mean oh oh dang it i got testicles in my hands what you got my man all right just one how much is it one dollar [Music] wait this one we have two cones now yeah more about that in a second i see people running around with meat taking orders are those like servers yes every person that owns a stole essentially has somebody that runs around to deliver the food so you can just pretty much just go order but your food will come to your car this is zimbabwe's version of a drive-in eatery where the hood of your car becomes your dining table heck you could never leave your front seat if you didn't want to when a runner takes your order they'll head to the butcher then to whichever pit master they work for once the meat is ready it's yours pair that with a crate of beers and try not to sideswipe too many cars on your way out if you're not ready to eat big you could always start with an appetizer this testicles yes or what they call them here gearboxes a gearbox yeah what does that mean i don't know the testicles or as gracia likes to call them gearboxes they're sliced into smaller bite-sized pieces seasoned with salt and spices then placed on a gas price stand until they cook through [Music] it's got a texture almost like chicken heart it's dense but soft and the seasoning on there is delicious it's salt but there's something else on there too is it usually men eating these yeah there's just this thing that goes around that if you're a woman and you do happen to eat them you might not conceive but i don't believe it you might not conceive am i supposed to love things that won't give me children this much because i do and then you just chase that with some ice cream i'm in heaven amazing good start i'm gonna head over to the meat section there's this long corridor of nothing but grills with smoke billowing out i want to see how they're grilling all this food [Music] all right i really want to show you the scale of this place because it's wild there are hundreds of people here hundreds of cars and along here dozens of people cooking meat the scale is ridiculous and the amount of meat coming through here too so when people order they can order from here if they want to but most people are ordering from their car because they can stay at their car and they can drink at their car because that's what you want to do right here they have so much going on in here huge troughs wood burning grapes on top and then tons of different types of meat on our menu today local zimbabwe and beef steak and a beef blend sausage is that steak yeah and then what's this beef sausage oh after ordering from a runner our meat is grilled with a touch of salt and delivered to someone's tailgate where they said we could film if we brought the car owner some booze deal hello step one wash your hands because we're eating with our hands all right i like that everything comes to you here it does we've got our food here i think we should do steak first so here they provided us with a knife oh my gosh hot off the grill we're out here the weather is beautiful there's music there's smoke everyone's having a blast let's try it out best thing we've had today absolutely really good juicy salty pretty tender oh and you know what the best part you can really taste the charcoal it's so smoky and delicious so how they have this yam they grab a piece of meat they get a tomato cucumber and a little piece of onion sure i'll do it but i'm not going to do cucumber it's fresh it's got some acid i just need to wash it down with this [Music] how do we um i'm going to show you a trick don't be surprised sunny oh done oh that's pretty harmless how many teeth do you have open up cheers yeah that's good zambezi zimbabwe's own beer and i love that no matter where you go in the world you can find some kind of lager that tastes basically like bud light now i want to ask you this they've just cooked our meat well the default is well done well done for everyone and i've noticed that all over africa why is that so i think people have just been used to eating well cooked meat just to be safe because i know even sushi here is that even a thing it is you've got a couple of places that offer it but there's so many people that are big on oh i'm not gonna eat that it's raw fish that's disgusting i'll die that is a mentality that is just like within zimbabwe as well here the sausage let me cut it up a little bit more little bite size pieces [Music] is super juicy really fatty very salty but it's got some nice seasonings in there too and just really beefy that's great i can see why people love this it seems like the ultimate party spot you drive in you hang out by your car because people will deliver the beers you get meat you just hang out i can't think of anywhere else i'd rather be right now cheers [Music] our epic southern africa food tour continues in the country of zimbabwe today i'm back in the capital city of harare heading into africa's busiest market it's so lively there's so much action i love it i'm on a mission to explore the most unique flavors and recipes this place has to offer and trust me when i say there's a lot from quality creatures i've never seen anywhere else in the world i've heard of them i've never seen them and here they are millions of them in my hands to cow parts i didn't know people could eat you will eat this whole thing it all starts here aretha good morning how are you today meet aretha after recently losing her job she went all in on creating her own restaurant a restaurant i'll get to see later today this is where she gathers ingredients this place is wild it's full of energy tons of people and it's just sprawling it goes on forever people are selling everything you can imagine food other stuff i'm mainly focused on the food embarre musica market it's a place where people are meant to buy food and take it away but wherever you find large groups gathering you'll find food including this illegal street food kitchen it's not supposed to be here no it's not because of healthy hazards you have to get a license because of hygiene because of hygiene with no permit and no clear way to get one the owner here risks it all in an attempt to feed local workers and make a humble living on today's menu grilled chicken and zaza a straightforward favorite but if you ask nicely they might show you this cow lung and cow esophagus i did not know you could eat that here we love it it's nice for the vitamins and all the cow's cow parts have been boiled down with onion tomatoes and a bit of salt i've learned that this is the classic trifecta used for cooking pretty much any protein in zimbabwe pair with rice and pumpkin leaves that are deceivingly delicious show me how to eat it okay a little bit of rice then you dig in all right that's ridiculous that's super delicious almost sweet and buttery it's hard to compare it to another plant do they cook that with butter they just use water wow wow that's stupid good no one's gonna believe me but it almost has a sweetness of like crab legs that is outstanding i'm delaying the inevitable we need to try these lungs and a big chunk of it let's go for it oh yeah very tasty super tasty and soft the flavors are not that strong it tastes like salt tomato onion everything here we cook with natural we don't do spices all right that was good no actually that was great but now this is something that's blowing my mind the esophagus you will eat this whole thing yes i can try the chocolate oh like the ring yeah the top ring [Music] well i'm not sure i'd say if it's tender same delicious flavors what would you compare that to that's like if you're eating chicken wings and you get that really bristly tendon part that's connected to the bone but it's all made of that i think it was very nice you need some powerful teeth to get through that mbari musica is located in the middle of harare city a fading radiant of vendors and residential buildings on the market edges make it impossible to measure if you walk from one side to the other how long does that take an hour in an hour that's real thing that's bigger than squad a walmart i was told somewhere here they have insects yes they do here they have some insects i've never even heard of never even seen before i didn't know people were collecting them or eating them so i'm hoping to track those down and if i find something could you cook it up yeah i will try and cook it you'll try it that's all i ask it's the busiest market in zimbabwe and quite possibly in all of africa as you walk through the market i mean there's no way to just show this place through individual stationary shots you have to feel it in 3d everywhere you look there's a different food someone carrying something on their head pulling a cart it's so lively there's so much action i love it mangoes nice over 17 000 people come here to do business every day boom this is where everything begins everything that gets here it either comes in big trucks or people from local villages are bringing it too so there's people at all levels all scales just kind of rocking up throwing down their fruit and doing their best to sell it before they head home it's a distribution center for fresh fruit and vegetables that'll make their way to the rest of the city and surrounding areas behind me there's a literal mountain of corn and there's also 10 people looking at me wondering what the hell i'm saying everyone here speaks english by the way they're just like it's corn what's the big deal somebody has dropped all this off they're going through it and people who want to buy the coin they go through they inspect it they check it they buy it they take it home or to their restaurant how you doing see people are super friendly they actually are just not that guy just a five minute walk from where i had breakfast another rogue food stall here they're serving up different chicken bits including the salty deep-fried intestines an excellent snack or drinking food i break them salty super crunchy it's almost like a chicken jerky not bad a little bit of an appetizer a little bit of an hors d'oeuvre if you will it's interesting i think because of hygiene i think because of a lack of infrastructure it's not really supposed to be a food place but it's kind of unavoidable where people gather there will be food here they're serving intestines before leaving the market crunchy i must see their selection of bugs yes they have mopane worms but i tried those before in namibia how does it taste it tastes like a gluten-free food i'm looking for something i can only find here we are deep in the market right now i've come to your stall this is your area yes where does it start and where does it end that's from here to here uh-oh so i'm in someone else's property right now hi it's my professor oh this is your tube yes caroline stahl specializes in pretty much anything she's interested in selling today that includes big-headed ants i've had a lot of ants before i've never seen ants like this a variation of the fire ant and an invasive species they have kind of an average sized body and a huge head they're a soil master and can be found during the dry season there's two kinds here this is this is termites yes that's wild termites belong to the cockroach family they also come from the ground anytime you see these giant wet brown mounds like this well that is a termite mansion i've heard of them i've never seen that well because i live in the north in minnesota we have winter so we don't really have termites and here they are millions of them in my hands it prepared incorrectly input sorts termites can be poisonous this is something i wish i'd known before tossing them in my mouth [Music] it's pretty good that is different than any other insect i've had it's a very distinct flavor i'm glad i tried this it's nutty it has kind of a musky flavor even a little like a a woody flavor caroline i would love to buy some of these ants i'm going to take it to a restaurant i'm going to see if they can cook it up now with ants in hand i'm heading to aretha's restaurant to see what she can do with this unique ingredient this is fantastic i'm so happy to be here thank you how long have you been doing this i've been doing this for the past two years whenever she's not cooking at her home restaurant she's catering events or parties today we've invited the whole neighborhood for whatever comes next but first the ants she prepares them two different ways the snack version fried in hot oil with a dash of salt and the meal version where the ants are boiled then paired with peanut butter and cooked down into a sticky paste what is your specialty my specialty is oxtail really that's what we have right here this tail has been stewing for three hours with you guessed it tomato onion and a bit of salt like most foods in zimbabwe this goes well with saadza a mixture of corn flour and water before we get started i need to ask what the hell is this that's our african cucumber my least favorite food is a cucumber and this looks like the grenade version of a cucumber it looks like very aggressive hostile angry at its parents people here call it it's like a covey disease oh spike when you cut this open does it look like a normal cucumber yes he does all right i'm gonna have to cut this open later mainly to kill it because i don't like cucumbers i'm gonna try the plain ants here mix it with salsa oh can you hear the crunchiness there's super crunchy this is a big head wow that's quite a flavor pretty different than any other ant i've had it's hard to pinpoint it i'm trying to figure out if i like it or not super crunchy salty and then it just has its own little funk to it here it's been mixed with peanut butter oh it's a nice big bite let's go oh yeah smart the peanut butter it takes the edge off the ants it makes it a little bit more smooth anything like peanut butter is awesome i could mix lupus with peanut butter and it would taste good this is your specialty the oxtail optional is one of my most favorite things that i can't get anywhere a lot of countries don't have it it's also a food that just takes a lot of love and time these beautiful cross sections of tail the bones in the middle of course all the meat protein tissue fat is all around it i like it like this oh you just bite it right off the bone yeah i'm getting my hands dirty for no reason [Music] oh that's undeniable as you go up and down the tail you have different amounts of fat and protein so every bite's a little different and they're boiling like the fat has really rendered down i just peel the protein off the bone you can see it's like a continuation of the vertebrae here going down in the tail and that muscle just gets so tender and delicious you stole my heart thank you today i'm making mazzondo mazzure is the carpet then we have the cow head so what do you do with the cowage we cut it up then we boil it we use an egg to cut it an ax an egg i've got to see that a big feast is coming up we've got some ingredients from the market and then some surprise ingredients i have no idea about i have some idea about i saw it a little bit today we're cooking up this whole cow head i have no idea how it's gonna be done oh my god i don't even know if we can show that on on youtube is that a boy or a girl is it a boy how do you know do you have a name tag oh because of the horns beef is common and loved in zimbabwe and here they use every part head to tail back to crack step one remove the tongue which is just hanging off so we're going to save that for later the tongue comes right off so the goal here is to kind of char the skin this is a very delicate process you don't want to burn the skin or overdo the skin or even tear it away you want to heat it up just enough so all the hair comes off the skin is still intact so that can still be eaten later gentlemen good luck i can hardly see good luck [Music] here's the deal this head's about to get chopped into little pieces so we can get put in a pot and boil for a long time do we have a chef knife no we have an axe hold up hey hold up why are you backing up you don't think i have control of an axe huh today's special cuts include the entire head the tongue and the cow feet now with the head hacked into several unspecified chunks it's time to cook boil it in water with a pinch of salt for four hours until the fat renders down and it becomes juicy next the tongue is charred to remove its outer skin then fill it open and spread out giving it more surface area to soak up more salt and to cook faster grill until it's cooked all the way through the head meat and the tongue are paired with brown sauce made from sorghum this is our final meal of the day everything today has built up to this moment we started at africa's busiest market where a lot of the produce for this restaurant is source plus we have a cow head i'm not sure where the cow head is from and i didn't want to ask and i felt like when i saw the head it was too late to ask the cow right now people have dished up some food everybody's eating this is kind of a familiar sight at this place it's like a home restaurant so there's a lot to try let's get into it oh this is a tongue right here tongue is tough because tongue can be well really tough if you don't prepare it properly so this took about 20 minutes to grill that whole thing all the way through success oh it's delicious super clean taste really dense i mean tongue meat is very underrated i would say tongue meat has a density kind of like heart meat that's good goodness you see they've cut it and scored it they could cook all the faster here this is a brown saza it looks like chocolate malto meal does it taste like that no it has next to no flavor a little bit different texture than the normal sauce i made from corn but of course that's meant to be paired with the other items on the dish because all this meat is very heavy for most people but not for me here head this looks fantastic actually this is reminding me right now of the tail we already have all the beautiful fats and tissues that have rendered down they're just sticky and slowly coming apart all right there's pros and cons one delicious the fat is just melt in your mouth the meat pulls apart it's super tender it's made with time and love and a little hostility the cons there are little bone fragments in there you have to chew with caution because you might catch a little bit of a bone splinter delicious this is really outstanding i can't believe it one of the most satisfying things i've eaten in a long time oh look at this what is this it's pineapple and cucumber i've been brought a salad to go with all these heavy foods but here they have a type of cucumber i've never seen before when you cut it open it looks completely different from any cucumber i've seen before i don't like normal cucumbers but i like sea cucumbers oh super crunchy it's a little slimy it's a little bit like the green part of a watermelon but i guess that's what cucumber tastes like here we have our last food first the cow feet hit the flames to get charred scrape down then cut into smaller pieces all this will soon be soup all it takes is salt water heat and a lot of time [Applause] so this would be up on the ankle or a little bit higher up on the leg it's just pure tendon i'm going to just pull this off take a look at that tendon super delicious when it gets cooked down like this soft get a little bit chewy but it's so rich you can only have a little bit of that all right that is the foot right here is half of a hoof and then the other half would be here except they actually cut it down the center when they're preparing it and what's really bizarre about the hoof is there's an enamel on the outside the enamel is basically like a big fingernail it's made out of keratin underneath that there's meat and mussel i'm literally gonna eat the bottom of a cow's foot let's try it out oh that's awesome it's not too dissimilar from the tendon almost like snappy crunchy when you bite into it okay this is a little higher on the hoof wow that's just pure skin bones and then some cartilage in between that's fantastic this is our third day in zimbabwe i'm pretty blown away to be honest we went to the market markets can be hectic chaotic sometimes aggressive because people are there time is money they got work to do and they don't have time for bs but here in harare in zimbabwe people have been very welcoming open and just curious about what we're doing and just wanting to interact and be playful so not only have i enjoyed the food today but being able to interact with people in this community has been an absolute pleasure [Music] now we're hitting the road heading out of the capital and into the countryside to meet this guy this is africa's apocalypse man builder this property is it yours yes or all yes hunter yes yes it's too late for you pardoner he's an african medicine african medicine fisherman oh he got one if you need food he's got you so we're eating this yeah all right it's like a fish stick today i'm on a mission to learn how a man so far from civilization lives you get your own water do you have electricity here nothing and how he eats what you got there this is my skill to measure your calories it all starts here at the home that he and his wife built together welcome to deca drum this is the least densely populated area of zimbabwe out here you've got space freedom the plants and animals mother nature has provided and not much else it's also been vincent's home for over 30 years thank you for having me usually we go to villages but this is just your home and your family's home yeah it is here home is a compound a group of separate structures most of which you might be used to seeing under the same roof this entire compound was hand built by vincent and his wife what are these two buildings right here this is a button that is a toilet one for cleaning one is for bathroom yes [Music] there's the main house where vincent and his wife sleep each of the kids have their own structure the kitchen gets its own structure too so on the side you have kind of your dish rack your counter and then the house itself what is it made out of is it just mud this cozy compact kitchen was built in a month and a half the women are tasked with building the wood frame and filling it with mud they make with stones or bricks but this one is stones while the men build the rooftops these are the things for the millet then we put the glass on top and here while vincent gives me a private tour his wife noni starts breakfast starting with porridge porridge starts with tamarind soaked in hot water to extract its flavors tamarind is one of the many indigenous fruit trees here that's worked its way into several local dishes and then there's this african medicine i use it to demand when they are not destroyed to that site and he's got some boner medicine over here all right oh you got lots of kids can i buy some of this from you later back in the kitchen where things are also getting steamy the tamarind infused liquid is separated from the fruit she adds cornmeal to a pot with a touch of sugar as she stirs it forms a thick porridge cornmeal which will become zaza is the chief source of carbohydrate for zimbabweans when you're miles and miles from the closest city your cornmeal stash is like a chest of gold that's where we keep maize or soda millet when we cut from the farm is the idea like you don't want the animals to get to it yes the cow can come in pasting having the elephant this time we have got elephants are you telling me sometimes elephants steal your food yes whoa this is a problem i've never had in my life cornmeal porridge and now cornmeal bread mix cornmeal flour salt sugar and water fill the pot with that mixture and cover it with a plate she adds coal on top to create mankind's first convection oven in the meantime this is a cage for my hands you eat the eggs or try to get more chicks i eat eggs from august september october november because it's too hot so they don't make babies but this now i leave them to make babies in those other months when you eat the eggs there would be no babies anyways yeah well thank you for the tour next we're gonna finish breakfast and eat breakfast is this a usual breakfast for you yes my mother cooks bread and porridge myself i cook fish can we try this first the porridge [Music] i like it so i've had a lot of sausage so far it's a bit more starchy you can grab it like mashed potatoes this is a little bit more sticky but i like it more than sansa and i know i don't have to compare i know they're different things different purposes but has zero flavor and this has flavor it's just a little bit sour and a little bit of sweetness too oh that's great over here you have the bread oh this looks really good it's like super dense thick bread i like that it tastes like some kind of a whole grain bread it's dense and kind of doughy yeah i'm fascinated by your lifestyle here you're out here you have your privacy you've built all your own structures i mean you're really like self-sustaining type of guy do you have electricity here nothing so you don't even need it oh whoops this small solar panel that powers vincent's brick phone are the only signs of modern technology here aside from tech meat is also rare to come by except for fish fish find its way into many of the meals around here including today's breakfast tilapia fillet rolled in flour lightly fried then dipped in egg and fried some more oh that's really good it's salty crunchy on the outside flaky and light on the inside it kind of reminds me of walleye or some kind of fresh fish we might eat in minnesota where i'm from where do you get the oil from you buy it from the stove buy from the store he's like what a dumb question even as resourceful as vincent and his wife are there are still a few essentials worth the long walk to the nearest market cooking oil sugar salt and soap how do you make money well what is work for you fishing making eggs crafting you make silverware out of wood yes or i guess woodware with over 45 years of fishing experience and a large river nearby fishing is the most profitable source of income for vincent [Music] all right so we've come to the deca river it's moving pretty quick and the levels are pretty high you said are these good conditions for fishing yes every day the deca river welcomes dozens of local fishermen some prefer to ride the wave with a fishing rod in hand others like vincent trust their nets to do the job what do you call this in english it's a deepness but in tonga sounds a lot cooler okay so that gets about four times the size now i'll put the stick here so he has kind of a rubber band here that he's going to use to really tightly secure this to the wood can i hold this to pretend to help that's okay all right this whole net did you make all this yourself yes this is cool [Music] this is the biggest fishing net i've ever seen in my life so he just takes it he goes up and down the coast the fish might be hiding among the rocks so when he puts that over them it might scare them into the net he can pull up and then pull out the fish that's it it's that simple [Music] oh we got one yes this is a barber fishing that's pretty big can i put my finger in its mouth is it oh it doesn't bite nothing well trained well done do you have like a bucket or where do you put that exactly i forget the bake you want to put it in my pocket no i'll find a bit oh okay i was trying to help [Music] are you happy with the catch for the day yes do you think it helped having me there the fish are either sold at market or dried and saved in vincent's pantry for personal consumption to prepare for drying each fish is scaled gutted and laid on a wood rack [Music] the rack is put over a fire for four hours until all the moisture leaves the fish for even longer storage set them in the sun for the rest of the day to bring life back to these dried fish throw them in boiling water to rehydrate then add some seasonings it actually looks quite fantastic can i have this one yes oh i think i can pull the bone out of it i don't throw it in there oh no my dog can take it oh what a waste i'm sorry it tastes good it has a different texture for sure it's very obvious that it was dehydrated and rehydrated so it has kind of a spongy texture a pretty different texture than what we have this morning but it's still satisfying it's oily what you got there this is my skill scale to measure your calories i'm wearing fish if i get the 5kg is 10 us so you're selling fish for about a dollar a pound yeah for you you're 58. i mean you're obviously very healthy very uh in shape than a lot of people i know but is there a retirement plan what do you do at a certain point if you're 65 75 my son should look after me and i will be using my cows so that's what i'm looking for to sell them to help myself in many parts of rural africa cows are a measure of wealth the more you have the wealthier you are they're like the stock market or should i say the livestock market people invest in cows and cows hold their value or their value goes up they can live a long time and they can even give birth to new cows that's called a dividend so if you're wondering why he eats so many fish while he has plenty of plump cows roaming around that's why but once a week vincent breaks his pescetarian ways and treats himself to one of these are the guinea fowl like the chickens they lay eggs and you get more they thin foul they make more eggs than their chicken how come you have more chickens than guinea power guinea fowls is a problem to grown up by the rain seasons the kids of kingfield they get dyed so we take the eggs from the gin files we give the chicken then they make babies the chickens have to take care of the guinea power yes oh that's the thing right now you're gonna go catch one you have a couple tools right here what do you have this one is for calling them to come in here with me and then i throw that on top yeah okay so you're not just running around no no no no with age comes wisdom [Laughter] oh they don't suspect anything oh hey i'm cool i'm uncle sunny i went that way here it comes here it comes they eat with caution every bite they take they look up and make sure everything's okay okay he makes his move he's got one chance at this it's looking up it's suspicious but it's also hungry yes yes it's too late for you good move that was awesome you know i swear on this show i've had people that made me chase chickens around why not just do this what was i doing before eating the guinea fowl is slaughtered soaked in hot water and de-feathered chop it into random pieces roll it in flour and just like any good bird recipe fry [Music] let's try it out you've been working your ass off all day let's go oh that's nice nice yeah salty on the outside a little crunchy real oily what is the main difference between the guinea power and the chicken the guinea pig is so hard not so soft like chicken you like the taste of guinea power or the hen more i like it any kind of meat okay me too you're right really different texture than chicken but still a pretty like sticky white meat oh it's delicious for all the work that went into this you thought maybe there would be more people here helping you your wife isn't here right now can you tell me where she is she was selling some cow the car was broken like its leg was broken yeah it's impossible to fix right yes and so what's that mean for you because i can never buy another in zimbabwe a cow can cost over 300 that could be over a year of fishing for a local so you may wonder why would folks invest in an animal that needs to be protected fed and watered why not just save cash zimbabwe has a history of rapid and extreme inflation at one point the government printed so much money they even had a 100 trillion dollar bill those who saved in cash lost everything those who invested in cows were fine sorry for your loss i know it's brutal thank you nonetheless for everything you've done for us today here the tilapia oh my gosh look at this beauty vincent's final course today steamed tilapia cut in half then brought to steam with a little water and salt add tomato seasoning and boil a little bit more plate with suds up i'm going to make sure to save the bones and everything for the dogs oh wow it's very earthy like i can taste the river the water you use for cooking where do you get that well now we are using the water from getting that's fascinating i don't think i've had rainwater or at least food cooked with rainwater before maybe that's what i'm tasting well it's good it's a super steamed nice fatty skin very very soft super soft and then you have the saza here and you can even dip that there's kind of a fish juice here i like your sides out the best so far i like it it's a little like uh lumpy not too smooth i know it's supposed to be smooth but actually i like that okay do you ever have dessert no no can i share something from my homeland with you okay please bring it in this is a peanut butter rice krispie bar covered in chocolate from kwik trip and it's covered with ants i did not think about that there you go can i use this to cut it nice okay okay oh these are so good i've been saving it and i just knew today was the moment we're going to share it and i'm going to see what you think i don't want to corrupt you this could be an evil thing i'm doing maybe you will love this so much and you can never try it again if that's the case i'm sorry but here you go thank you oh god oh i love it [Laughter] it's been nice you like it yes there's peanut butter sugar it's sweet chocolate on top it's beautiful so but with us can we make this you know how can we make it i understand you can't make this one i also cannot make this because in my hometown i don't have any guinea power we all have different things from our homeland that are unique to where we come from and this is just one for me and i just thought it would be uh fun for you to experience there's no doubt that vincent's life is not without adversity but what's so impressive is that to an outsider he makes this look easy and just so you guys know we bought vincent a new car what do you think you like it yeah you're eating it [Laughter] our epic southern africa food tour continues in the country of zimbabwe now we finally concluded our cross-country road trip arriving at our final destination victoria falls today i'm on a mission to go deep into zimbabwe's local flavors and local ingredients it looks like a nice pair of shoes yeah it's so soft ingredients you won't find at your average air-conditioned supermarket you like this right this is a food porn in the end our efforts will culminate in a one-of-a-kind pork platter look at this christmas but before that we gotta go shopping carl yeah have you been to this market before yeah a few times we've reached the city of victoria falls here there's a whole economy revolving around travelers who wish to take in one of the seven natural wonders of the world aside from tourist lodges and restaurants you can still find local markets like this when you bought the bus going out of town this is where you collect a couple of your ingredients before you hit the road this place has a ton of different foods they've got kind of the typical stuff this one is that just puffed corn that's probably the most unhealthy thing you can get in here here they have food and produce you'll find at most any market around the world that's puffed corn with lots of sugar and coloring but the uncolored unflavored one if you wave this in front of the camera you're to make a lot of zimbabweans crave but if you have a keen eye you'll find some rare food delicacies few outsiders have seen before what is this so like termites will make a mound oh i've seen that [Music] from a termite mound but it has nutrition it doesn't it's a termite it is whoa yeah oh you just ate some of it yeah yeah there are many different types of edible clay dirt and soil in zimbabwe but this one in particular comes exclusively from termite mounds women will have a craving for this like literally my wife will buy two of these in a month oh i gotta try some of this the data is still out on whether consuming dirt is good for your health but it is rich in minerals especially iron but like with anything i suggest eating dirt in moderation i mean yeah there's no hiding the fact that is fun and what's in here iron yeah i am taste 100 like i just picked up some dirt and ate it there's no like hidden notes or anything like that that's much to give you context so we grew up when we're young we'd play a lot of games acting like we cooking and you know that kind of thing and we'd eat a lot of mud you know when you grow with it it's not a foreign taste to you fascinating i mean it has nutrients for the trees why not for us yeah absolutely carl was born and raised in a nearby village now he's an international comedian standard comedian entertainer and a cook yes and chef what's good about this market a lot of the stuff is grown in the local villages and so do you know where it's actually come from i have to talk to you about this this guy this is something i've never seen before at first glance it looks like a fruit or something that's been around too long it looks moldy then you pick up and touch it it's like suede or velvet but this is a fruit right yes from the baobab trees while many people know of the baobao tree few may know that it has a special fuzzy fruit oh she has a big rock exactly or is that dirt is that food and once you crack it open you'll reveal one of the most nutrient-dense foods in the world oh that is full of stuff baobao fruit is the only fruit that dries naturally on the branch rather than dropping or spoiling oh so it looks kind of like chalky almost yeah it's got like citrusy sour notes oh there's some seeds right this is wild the texture of it is very chalky the flavor is sweet and tart so i use this a lot to make cheesecake oh wow i use this in porridge so i'm a diabetic when i put this into my sadza it controls my blood sugar a lot and the seeds are now being processed to make oils and lots of different things as well will you cook with this today we're going to make a cocktail for you with this cool so my father was a comedian and my mom taught home economics so i stole the genetic pool i had my disposal so you got a little bit from each one yeah yeah stand-up comedy i only do 15 minutes on stage and the rest of the time i'm out in the streets eating street food in the different countries i travel to this brings me to the last thing now i do believe i've had this before a couple years ago i was in namibia and they had more paneer worms these ammo pony worms yeah well panty worms come from the mopane tree they're long juicy and can be found in many parts of southern africa these have been dried just a way of preserving them interesting it smells like a wet dog a little bit pretty much a lot of our bugs have the same smell when you dried them this is amongst a lot of the new people especially from a political perspective so i spent most of my time in exile he studied in the uk and he's traveled a lot now that experience has worked its way into his comedy and his food what do you like about this i've been trying to find alternative ways to use these because we get a lot of foreigners that come into the country that don't quite like the idea of eating the worms right so what i do is i crush them and i use them as seasoning how would you describe this do you think this is maybe what fermented soy is to japanese i think it goes in that range between like a soy to a fish sauce for example in terms of its use when you say it like that i'm eating it with a different frame of reference right and i'm experiencing that so you're cooking up a lot for us today yeah we are what's in store just give us a teaser so what we have is a pig's head right and we're gonna just chuck everything at it every grain every imaginable flavor cooking for us is more about bringing people together to do something else as opposed to the actual cooking so we let the stuff cook away on its own sit for three hours just watch life happen i can't wait do you have a pig head not yet we have to go find one let's go get it cool we're heading a bit outside the city to find some pig parts you rarely see on the dinner table how are you i'm okay gary here she's in more than one meat business butcher shop on the inside then grilling and selling cooked meats on the outside a lot of butcher shops i go to they have the meat on full display here it's kind of hidden away in these chests each of these contains some different meat we don't know what's inside i want to point out what i see here though cow legs feet a little bit of both i'm kind of distracted right now oh you like this right this is food so you you cook this up sometimes so yeah you're gonna get it do people have to buy a pair or do they try to keep it together like when people adopt two dogs i would have this that my wife would have for one person yeah so we're not going to get any cow legs today sorry they look great he's a big fan what are you looking for so uh do we have pig's head let's take a look her best-selling item and a favorite in zimbabwe beef but i have yet to see any pork oh yep all right thank you is that what you were looking for this is insane it looks magical how old do you think this pig is here's what i'm worried about the size do you have one more yeah can you get in [Music] this is perfect this is what you wanted right this is exactly what i wanted they're about five dollars each ten dollars that's a really good deal i make this two times a week oh really yeah all right we're gonna get out of here you have your ingredients from the market and you're gonna make it happen i can't wait to see it [Applause] so i'm about to make a dish that combines a whole bunch of my favorite dishes in zimbabwe first we need to start with i'll call them alfred and junior food in zimbabwe is quite straightforward almost every meat dish is either seasoned with just salt or if the cook is feeling frisky they may also toss in tomatoes and onions few of my favorite beans i don't know what this bean is called but it's very yummy the second one sugar beans and the third one mace carl isn't trying to reinvent zimbabwe cuisine instead he's combining mixing and blending unique flavors already native to this land gonna put in some onion garlic tomatoes green peppers and the final ingredient we've got caterpillars which is our mopani worms carpenter which is our salty fish and a couple of spices in here [Music] that's gonna provide our seasoning cover that for three hours and have a couple of beers [Music] this place is like a local rest stop a clump of businesses like bars butcheries and street food vendors hoping to sell to whoever stops by for those who don't have fresh water running in their homes you need help they might get their water like this here i can help you [Music] oh all right you're doing pretty good by yourself you don't trust me do you oh that's actually easier than i thought all right so this is the pump and this is where you get fresh water it does require some work and it does burn some calories but basically it's like a giant lat machine and then look down there she's drinking water until this well goes about 40 meters down it's uh over 100 feet very deep into the core of the earth where the most delicious water is the only problem is can i pump it and then run down there in time to drink it let's try pump run it's delicious it tastes like metal that makes sense oh yeah you know what maybe i didn't have to rush after all it's still oh wait there's another guy pumping i thought i just pumped it so hard it just would keep coming forever for years to come and everyone would talk about the day that sonny came and blessed the village but no there's just another guy fresh water that's how they do it here very cool while the pig heads continue to simmer away i offered carl an appetizer i did what uh what did you kill some chicken parts i got from a street vendor that looks like a hot bird of some kind and mushrooms i bought from a random villager mushrooms what kind of mushrooms let's hope they're more magical than poisonous they're a red mushroom they're from the bush and they're edible they're edible okay and so i met a gentleman my name is daous right now i'm cooking some mushrooms we'll get them in the bush and then we eat it's good in the body with a blue like a highway construction jacket okay that's safe he said that's safe it means he has a day job this gentleman walked about half a mile into the bush to pick these i don't know many i know these red ones a type of wild mushroom whose name i was unable to track down in our language regardless of what you've learned about mario and his love for mushrooms this red color is usually associated with poisonous or hallucinogenic mushrooms but heck if this guy was going to eat them why not me i'm collecting mushrooms once a week just eat we don't sell them these are far too tough to eat raw they must be boiled for an hour then cooked with a bit of oil and salt should we try this yeah the red hue it was just on the cap top before and it's kind of spread among all the mushroom now try it out okay a little gritty that's very interesting pretty good look a little fragrance to it yeah a bit of a like sharp flavor not quite a truffle but there's something nearly astringent about it it's very immediate it's satisfying in the way that meat is satisfied yeah you're introducing me to a new zimbabwean food so you've never tried this one before pretty awesome huh wow i could do this on toast all day over here right [Music] the gizzards are boiled with a bunch of salt add intestines liver then hearts and coke this is the best part it's both chewy and soft at the same time it's like chewy in the most satisfying way possible what are we going for intestines yeah these are my favorite everyone fights for this when you're eating oh it's all just a package look at this heart intestine all together in some countries they didn't tie this to the chicken feet i think i saw that in the medium so you like it it's a good snack i wanted to ask you some more questions about food here this is our fifth video we've just gotten a good first-handed snapshot yeah i'm so curious about the food and how it got to the state it's in now so i want to ask about colonization because that must have changed a lot and then when did this country become independent we got our independence in 1980 so you were alive i was born like literally a year old that's wild remember we we're nomads we travel with the land that kind of thing so as colonization came we were put into different areas and so what would happen is a man would start a new family there bring a little bit of what he has from home to a people that don't understand what he has so culinary identity it changes completely then let's start talking about new ingredients being brought into the country maize easiest way to feed people smaller grains were too inefficient to grow not on mass you couldn't feed a country like that and that in a way became what is known as traditional food today in zimbabwe but it's not traditional how do you get that back is it too late there's a need to celebrate past presence and future and i think each of us individually have an objective mind is to understand our past see what we're doing in the present and perhaps maybe come up with a new culinary identity in future okay let's get this on the plate today's dish is a beautiful reimagining of zimbabwean flavors local ingredients you wouldn't usually see together combined into an edible mosaic all that dumped on rarely utilized pig pigheads this is going to be awesome or a complete disaster let's find out look at this christmas i call it romeo and juliet the pig crust lovers yes so what i did is i just took ingredients that make up a lot of difference development dishes and then we created a spice blend using the worms and the fish [Music] a little bit of a kick at the end of this right so that is layered flavor yeah the flavor is super savory i think the worm and the fish together contributed a lot of flavor and we're trying to avoid using salt on its own because a lot of these foods are cured or dried using salt already i'm going to try to grab this part here so we have a jowl the jar muscle i don't know what you would call that oh yes i'm going to just drench it in this gravy here oh wow delicious it's incredibly rich super fatty what you can see inside burrow in deeper there's a protein here mix it with the beans and the gravy sauce oh and then the ear so it's been boiling just long enough that this is a thick cartilage in the middle of the ear but i'm able to just cut it down with a fork kind of crunching are you snappy getting through that cartilage it's like the most tender dainty ears i've ever seen in my life that's awesome i noticed on the side what's this you remember the baobab stuff that we found when you eat baobab it's like having six oranges so what i did is i made a cocktail using a locally made liquor with a bit of orange soda and the baobab and this one's just for me you're not drinking it i'm gonna have this what's that this is a beer that's almost made from porridge oh oh did you mix with fanta too huh yeah that will make you sneak for the rest of the day i like it i taste a little bit of the fruit you put in there too a bit but also the fanta has a strong presence all right where do we go in here we want to open this guy up we have to work as a tv yeah open it up i got it so that should just split oh it's like it's yawning here there's a lot to work with here the roof of the mouth the soft palate the tongue what do you want you want to go for the tongue yeah but you don't break the exterior out no no just leave it like this it is yeah i got some front tongue you got some back tongue let's try it out [Music] the tongue is such a beautiful texture it's so different from any other part and when it gets steamed or boiled for a long time maybe i use this too much but i say it's kind of like almost become a pate absolutely you know this is the first time i've had pork so far in zimbabwe oh yeah because we're very religious and i think it's also because people don't know how to handle the fat and so people just shy away from pork entirely really yeah they gravitate to the scripture of jesus putting demons in the pigs now why would jesus do that because the demons wanted some way to go oh there were too many of them so jesus told them to go into the pigs can i tell you something yeah i taste zero demons no demons are killed in the making of this meal i have a very nuanced palette so here we have the top of the head let me flip this guy around i think i could go from the forehead and almost like peel off the skin here whoa and whatever that is yeah we're trying to get into the brain oh dude cheek meat hold on before brain you should grab the cheek meat on that okay [Music] man it's that perfect ratio tender sticky meat rendered down fat that's awesome so we're going to go for the eyes now the eyes so using your fork at the bottom here pop out here whoa that was one of the best eye pulls i've ever seen let's see if i can match that oh i got it but you got the retina going that connects all the way up to the brain everything we've tried so far i like in earnest and i'm not just like pretending right i'm not a big fan of the eyes neither might so what i do is i have to spoon a bit of the put some gravy on it yeah pig eyeball you ready big eyeballs it's good you know what it's all in my mind it's all in my mind it doesn't feel i like right no i'm far too aware that it's an eyeball i can feel it like breaking apart my mouth and so eyeball's pretty gamey too maybe you had glaucoma all right so we have tried a lot we've gotten to really know this pig intimately there's one more part which is the brain get this fork in there there we go oh yes bare-handed you're just going to break it open like a beast like lobster tail okay so the membrane here opens up it's quite creamy just mop that up a little brain a little bean go for it let's go oh wow maybe too big of a bite it's so intense it's so creamy and fatty it's like eating a stick of pig butter i should have broken it up a little bit but i like it i appreciate it garlic yeah it's been an absolute pleasure fantastic i think you've opened me up to a whole different side of this country it's been an incredible journey so far but now it's a much more well-rounded journey so thank you no thank you so much for visiting our country my absolute pleasure cheers oh yeah today we're going tribal heading into the countryside to see a way of life that's fading more and more each passing day [Music] this is mr impeses village he's lived here nearly his whole life so back then did you dress like this didn't even back in a time when locals could hunt and eat wild game like zebra and giraffe what other animals did you hunt lion incredible today i'm on a mission to walk a day in mr and pc's shoes today you're going to be making goat how often does this happen i want to see how he lives life is something which is good food we have to cook him and of course how he eats so this is a kitchen it does lack maybe like a fan they've got food you might not be ready for these little things not testicles that would be down there and to be honest i may not be ready either oh the bile that's mexican but here it goes say hello to mr impeacy head of this village you shake hands here yeah we do it like this like this and that's perfect and his day starts like most people's with breakfast so you have some tea right here do you usually have tea in the morning i do eat this a breakfast of tea and bread may sound familiar to most but the way this bread was made is truly unique so this is a kitchen it does lack maybe like a fan smoke is medicine for the eyes that's fantastic right here we have the bread this is a mixture of cornmeal and sorghum and water that makes a batter and instead of being something like saza which you see all the time it's much more dense and they caked it to the walls of the pan and then the water on the bottom bubbles and steams up cooking the batter by way of steaming it well you know what i'm getting used to the smoke i feel good my eyes feel great i'm supposed to have tears right that's good yeah while i flee in search of oxygen the bread stays to bake for another 30 minutes then it's ready to serve this looks good how is it really interesting flavor it tastes like whole wheat although it's not wheat at all but it has that whole grain kind of taste to it the crunchy part that's good right a little bit of tea mr mpc was born in the mid lands i was born in 1944 but for most of his life this is the place he's called home how long have you been in this area since 1955 wow trying to do the math hold on i was a terrible student his village is just 12 miles from the rapidly expanding city of victoria falls over time it's changed a lot [Music] when we came here in 1955 it was bush there is only one hotel the victoria falls hotel white people were only five who were living in victoria first during that time but now it's a city so back then did you dress like this what did you wear from the animals you would haunt and what kind of animals did you hunt any animal was hunted during the giraffe yes i just got a good testament oh giraffe has good meat as the world around in pcs village becomes more and more modern traditions and customs become harder to maintain it's not that outside forces are putting an end to what happens here but young rebellious youth in any culture tend to seek out what's trendy new and different today you're going to be making goat how often does this happen every weekend you should have a coat because my grandchildren are coming they should have something to eat so you go through 52 goats a year that's a lot of goats [Applause] pc's village consists of several tribes that make up one family and pc belongs to the independe tribe his wife from the tonga tribe two of the major ethnic groups in zimbabwe about once a week they gather to celebrate life that means singing dancing praying drinking so this is like breakfast number two but this one gets you drunk yeah it's good real thick just drink with food yeah [Music] [Applause] with their hearts full and their stomachs empty it's time to slaughter a goat dispatch drain [Music] butcher and cook from nose to tail this goat will become several dishes that will feed many first up because it's the easiest to spoil blood with chopped ovals blood is good food we have to cook it there are certain parts and so forth a little bit of liver put it with blood so that we mix it and cook it together the pile is also all the bile it's full of very very bitter green liquid that green liquid mix is an anti-inflammatory even if you've got cow i'll help yes wow this is going to be quite the starter course the pot is seasoned with salt and placed on the stove as the blood turns over the heat it changes from scarlet to a muddy black here blood represents being so eating blood means gaining life so the blood is finished it's not blood now it's food rice food i did have goat blood with that on my first day in zimbabwe good morning tastes better than i thought but here we have the bile mixed in so it should be more bitter right tasty this is blood [Music] good food i love the texture but it's very sticky it's salty but it's like naturally salty i don't taste any bitterness the bile is in there oh cool oh this one's liver [Music] why no i don't know i mean classic liver flavor much more firm solid that's wild so are you usually eating this first that's what you eat [Music] the fat is really gummy like it's impossible to chew but you just squeeze all the flavor out of it yes and there's delicious oils you never get sick of this no no no no no sit you can't even check it never gets pointed you do that sometimes you hide it for yourself i'm told that you also do african medicine yes do you call it african medicine or do you call it something else smith does it that makes sense you're in africa zimbabwe has a long history of using plants for medicinal purposes a practice most locals still opt for that is devil's law it's good even for malaria and it heals heart problems can you heal a broken heart this rich medical knowledge is passed down from generation to generation pc learned his craft from his grandfather this one there are some people can't even make a woman pretend that's what you use how many kids do you have only seven okay though many may dismiss traditional medicine without a second thought it may be sobering to know that fully forty percent of modern medicines are derived from plants even if you are coughing what if you got packaged headaches you just put it in water take aspirin for example launched into the world from willow bark oh i mean it tastes like medicine it's very bitter right now the only medicinal healing i need is from food and i'm in luck i like your style here it's like little appetizers throughout the day yes this here is grilled goat liver using the goat's skin as a cutting board chop the liver open and spread it on a mesh grill with some fat on top [Music] a little bit different feeling because before it was boiled in the different tests when you're eating food you should have a varieties of chests you're speaking my language variety is the spice of life so the other one was more full of water really soft this is a little more like chewy and like a harder outside some smokiness i like it it's almost like a jerky how long can you save this for a few days you can put it in this for some days in many rural areas like this hanging and smoking is the most effective way to preserve freshly butchered meat hanging food here in this part of africa scares me because i even saw baboons in the city do baboons ever come here they do and do they ever attack your village no no we still have this world like us human beings they've got a role in our society don't give wild animals food which is eaten by human beings they changed their behavior but if we live in harmony we talk to them they move away really you can see lions they come to you pretend as if you've got a lot of energy approach them don't fear they can feel that you fear inside your heart they run away but if you attack they fight you so no animal is dangerous as human beings during mpc's lifetime he's experienced a transition from game meat to pasture animals and even these rabbits are prized for their lean meat but just as much for their fur holy cow this is a rabbit skin blanket made from 36 rabbits i saw it this one when you put it is very good i like it like this normally the rabbits are dispatched carefully skinned and sized up for the blanket this one's one hey maybe you can make a pillow case yes the remaining carcass is grilled over charcoal with a touch of salt [Music] pt said i had his permission to enjoy the rabbit to try it out and he said that the rabbit is one of the most nutritious animals they have they said more nutritious than chicken more than beef and i think possibly even more than goat i'm gonna try this part right here these little things non-testicles that would be down there these are kidneys it looks like a wood tick that sucked on a dog for too long and got big and fat yummy [Applause] it's just like juicy almost tastes like sausage i mean so far this trip in zimbabwe we've been eating a load of meat cow sheep we're gonna have goats soon we've had rabbit we've had chicken we've had guinea fowl fish you name it people here really like and appreciate meat and so do i is that the heart it could be the heart oh no mr nbc said he could fix a broken heart is it too late [Music] let's try it out oh it's awesome i'm going to break this back leg off there we go but take a look at this meat super white very lean and it's probably not going to be juicy i'm guessing the juiciest part was that kidney we'll try out a bit firm but not bad at all this is quite delicious it's not really dry you think it'd be a lot more dry for being just a lean rabbit it's a little chewy man i'm falling in love with the smokiness of it and all my times coming to africa this is one of my most unique experiences so far i know we're just mid-video i'm giving you a mid-video update it's kind of heartbreaking when you realize and see and experience how beautiful the traditions are here and you know that what you see today is still a diluted version of what once was right now in bc the family they're finishing up the goat the real main meal is about to begin so a very good one like many tribes around africa some of the sacrificed animal parts are strictly allocated to men what we eat earlier that's for men and others to women depressed or short-lived concerns for women for dinner today we've got sorghum zaza african cabbage and something known as zanienze more on that soon so i've got some of the african cabbage oh yeah that's so fresh but it's a little bit bigger do you put bile in this nothing okay oh so this is something i've never seen before this is a piece of goat tripe wrapped tight with intestines the ingredients or should i say the goat's stomach and intestines are thoroughly cleaned and then cut down to size [Music] each piece of tripe is wrapped with intestine forming an elongated sausage-like shape now boil these works of art with salt until they reach the desired level of tenderness [Music] that's so cool but it looks pretty gnarly too oh my god like a perfume or a field of daisies that's good food idea smells so good [Applause] [Music] uh-huh okay the taste is better than the smell can i say that it's better than the smell i love the texture it's like squishy squeaky like some over cooked calamari i've mixed the sausage with it to dilute the flavor a little bit what's your favorite part right here i gotta say the more i take bites the more i like it it smells of gastric acid but when you're eating it it's not really bitter i'm just kind of savory what do you think big fan too much i like that as you may have noticed men and women tend to sit and eat separately women can talk about women's stuff and guys can talk about guy stuff that's what in pc says so what are some of the main issues you know it's hard to tell women that i have lost of lipitor i have one loss of lipids oh yeah no one wants to admit that but we can discuss it if we are men together instead of discussing my own libido status i figure it's better to move on to the next topic the goat leg grilled over fire until it's well done and seasoned with a bit of salt [Music] oh yeah i can't wait to try this out oh yeah very nice [Music] super smokey are you using mopane wood yes great flavor it's juicy and tender on the inside almost no gamey goat flavor at all it's like the opposite of the intestines in the stomach it's so different it's so different but now it's just better because they've tested that one that is part of the flavoring that makes sense i like that i want to ask throughout the day i've gotten your perspective on what it's been like to grow up in this area and to see the world around you change so much now you're an elder you have children grandchildren great grandchildren what do you want for your great grandchildren as they grow up the young people they like to depend while changing their mindset educate them let them be involved teach them all survival skills in order to survive every now tough it is we work as a team to collectively that collectivity makes us to cause some us choosing our own just not to be planned by other people see the sunlight up the sky sir been a pleasure an amazing day thank all of you for allowing us into your community into your village and for letting us learn more about the people here and i hope you enjoy it and i love the food too ten out of ten fantastic boom guys that is the end of this video not only that it's the end of our zimbabwe series i hope you've enjoyed it this is one of the most amazing adventurous kind funny fascinating countries i've ever been to all around the world especially here in africa i had a great time you should come to zimbabwe too great food lots of meat very nice people what more could you ask for that is going to wrap it up for this series coming up next more adventures in africa i like seeing africa that way that is it for this one thank you so much for watching i'm going to see you next time a peace peace peace maybe they can grill something else i did see a chicken

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 736,224

Keywords: best ever food review show, befrs team, sonny side, africa continent, african country, Zimbabwe, traveling to africa, Bizarre African Food, UNREAL Zimbabwe Street Food, ZIMBABWEAN BREAD, Pig head, MUD, Tribal Food, MPISI VILLAGE, bread, GOAT BLOOD, cow head, pig head, street food, MOPANE WORMS, FRIED TILAPIA, PORRIDGE, ILLEGAL Street Food, Africa’s Busiest Market, COW LUNGS, MBARE MARKET, ANTS WITH PEANUT BUTTER, BEEF BONES & PEANUT BUTTER RICE, PIG TESTICLES, GANGO

Id: 8pL-DEjhatY

Length: 93min 25sec (5605 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 03 2022