"Northern Mozambique" a Mozambique Travel Page by trilbi

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my itinerary

For many years Northern Mozambique was cut off by landmines, bad roads and bandits. Furthermore, in year 2000 the nation's worst flood on record devastated the country greatly contributing to its isolation. Now it is still very remote, there is almost no turistic infrastructure and the roads are very bad but I never felt in danger. The landmines have been mostly cleared, the people are very friendly and the landscape is spectacular!
The region is home to the Makonde, famous for their carvings, and the Makua ethnic group. The artistic tradition, even if it may seem incredible, continues to thrive after decades of colonial occupation and civil war. The sculpture of the Makonde people is recognised as one of Africa's most sophisticated art forms.
Northern Mozambique is also the birthplace of the Mozambican independence struggle. The Mozambique Liberation Front, or Frelimo, formed in 1962, sought to completely liberate the country from Portuguese rule. The independent Republic of Mozambique was proclaimed in 1975 after more then10 years of war, and then troubles really began. It 's only since 1992 when a peace treaty was signed that the civil war ended and finally the reconstruction could start.

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the fabulous kitchen of our campsite on Ibo island

looking for traditional dishes...

As always coming back from a country, I start to think about the special dishes I tasted and how can I find the ingredients or the recipes. Mozambique is not easy in that respect, at least in the northeastern regions where there are little tourists and the few are probably looking for pasta or pizza.
Walking through the villages on the coast I have been offered great seafood: octopus, shrimps, lobsters and wonderful crabs that we cooked on our own on the fire. If you don't have cooking gear don't worry, they will find a way to cook it for you!

I could taste only few traditional dishes like Nshima with chambo fish on the lake Niassa and Tocossado de peixe com chima de mandioca in Ilha de Mocambique. If some special dish was in the menu and I asked for it they always said it had to be ordered in advance. I was very frustrated. The only thing I could do then was to write down the exotic names from the menu for later.
Here they are:
Tocossado de peixe com chima de mandioca
Tocossado de peixe com arroz de coco
Caril de camarao
Matapa de folha de mandioca, com castanha de caju e coco
Mole mole efeito com feijão de oloco moído, oleo e tamperos
Apas efeito com farinha de arroz e coco
Rothy efeito com farinha de trigo, manteiga e leite do coco
Nicotoncorro, pure de feijão cute, manteiga e coco
Nimino de manioca, peixe frito e coco
Nimino de banana macaco verde, peixe frito e coco
Nicurre efeito com feijão cute moído e coco
Nihamama, pure feijão cute fresco descascado mad e coco

For some of these dishes I already found the recipes even if I don't know some of the ingredients (what is feijão cute??), for others (nicurre and nihamana) I had no luck so far. Now I'll start to put together a menu strong of the fact that I have a little treasure that is small jar of Limao (preserved lemons in salt and piri piri). It was given to me as gift when I asked for the recipe by the lady, called the "chinese" by the locals, who runs a little restaurant in Ilha de Mocambique right next to the fish market.

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Travelogues:
From the Rovuma river along the coast

Nampula to Cuamba by train
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My other pages:
Ibo island
Ilha de Moçambique
Lake Niassa