What are we eating in Zanzibar?
The food in Zanzibar reflects the island’s many cultural influences. For many centuries, Zanzibar was a thriving port city for Arab and Indian traders. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Zanzibar was a porwerful city-state, supplying slaves, gold ivory and wood, while importing spices, glassware and textiles. During this time period, Islam became established in Zanzibar: today, 95% of the population is Muslim. The Portugese and British briefly controlled the island during the 16th century, but the Omani Arabs came to power by the early 17th century, establishing a trade in ivory and cloves. The visitors also brought crops like maize, cassava and pineapple to the island.
The result of this long history of trade is a vibrant array of foods. The island is no longer one of the world’s main sources of spices—government privatization of the clove industry, in particular, has made the business unprofitable—but aromatic spices still season the food.
There are many choices for food in Zanzibar. We usually start off with fruit and bread for breakfast, or we walk to a small shop on Gizenga Street (that’s where they sell souvenirs and art) and buy breakfast from the food on display in the case. Glass cases full of food are everywhere in Zanzibar, but we have our favorite vendors. After we buy breakfast, we often eat at Forodhani Gardens, a public park that overlooks the Indian Ocean and the port. It’s very picturesque.
We also eat often at a place called Lukmaan’s Restaurant. We’ve become good friends with the staff because we go nearly every day. The restaurant is definitely a local haunt, and the food is pretty traditional and cheap! We love it. Most meals are under $2.
We’ve tried some of the fancier restaurants like this great Italian place called Amore Mio and a Chinese restaurant called Pagoda, but our favorite dinner place is at Forodhani Gardens. At night, the park comes alive with street vendors selling fish and Zanzibar pizza (see below). We also get great brownies from this café in Forodhani, which are chocolatey and gooey—perfect when we want to eat something American.
Common Foods Eaten in Zanzibar:
Sambusa: Also called samosas, these are triangular fried pastries filled with meat or fish, vegetables, and chilis. They cost around 400-500tsh (1564tsh = $1). This is one of the foods we eat for breakfast.
Andazi: Andazi are similar to doughnuts: the dough is made with coconut milk so they have a slightly sweet flavor. They’re fried and have a light, fluffy texture. There is also something called Shketi, which is like Andazi but they’re braided before fried and covered in a sweet sugar coating. Andazi are everywhere, but we’ve only seen Shketi a few times.
Naan: This Indian bread comes plain, with sesame seeds, or covered with crushed garlic.
Chapati: This is a classic Zanzibar bread, and I plan to learn how to make it before I leave. The dough is simple: it’s made of flour, salt, oil, and egg. The dough is twisted, browned and fried to make a flaky, flat pancake. When we’re trying to be healthy, we eat the whole wheat chapati—but it’s kind of grainy. We eat this a lot at Lukmaan’s.
Coconut Curry: Curries are made with samaki (fish) and/or vegetables. The curry is pretty mild compared to Thai curry or Indian curry, but it’s still very flavorful.
Fish and Seafood: There’s so much fresh fish here. The best are the mahi mahi, tuna, and kingfish. There’s fresh mussels, octopus, calamari, crabs, and lobster, too.
Zanzibar Pizza: I am in love with Zanzibar Pizza. Zanzibar Pizza is not like regular pizza. It’s a fried concoction made with chapati dough and filled with meat, salt, mayonnaise, soft cheese (cream cheese), chili, onion, lettuce, tomato, and oil. There’s also a sweeter variation that’s filled with mango, banana, nutella, and chocolate. YUM! We only buy Zanzibar Pizza from one vendor in Forodhani, a man nicknamed Nutella. Nutella teaches us English and jokes with us. We are among his best customers, so we always get a discount on the pizza, which is usually 2000tsh.
Rice: We eat rice at EVERY MEAL!!!
Pilau: Pilau is a special rice dish that is normally eaten only on special occasions. Pilau is rice cooked in beef or chicken stock and seasoned with cinnamon sticks, cardamom, fresh ginger, raisins, cumin, potatoes, garlic, and black pepper.
Biryani: Biryani is a tangy sauce made with carmelized onions, chili, and beef stock. It’s usually paired with rice.
Fruit: The fruit is delicious. We’ve tried new fruits with names that I can’t pronounce. The mangos taste like candy: I think they’re my new favorite fruit. The bananas and oranges are also delicious, but they don’t look like American bananas and oranges. The oranges are often green—not orange. The bananas are only a few inches long—very tiny. And fruit is really inexpensive compared to the US: You can buy a mango for 300tsh and a dozen oranges for 2000tsh.
Chai tea and coffee: These drinks don’t taste anything like the American versions. Both are heavily seasoned with cinnamon and ginger. I rarely drink tea at home because I don’t like it, but I’m addicted to the chai tea here. We put sugar in the tea here, but the sugar is made with orange juice—this flavor combination complements tea really well.
Zanzibar Soda: I really like the Stoney Tangawizi soda, a type of ginger ale (Tangawizi means ginger). It has a spicy after taste because it’s made with real ginger, unlike the Canada Dry version I know from home. There’s also Krest soda, which comes in both soda water and bitter lemon varieties. Apparently, the bitter lemon is supposed to prevent mosquito bites, but we haven’t been able to try it because there was a problem at the bottling factory, and there hasn’t any Bitter Lemon in Zanzibar. But the soda water is very good, too.
