 Norali's Madagascar Travelogues | | | |
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| Page Views: 7,352 Last Visit to Madagascar: 2006 I Used To Live Here | Malagasy cuisine by Norali - last update: May 20, 2006 |
Rice, zébu meat, chili paste... | Cascade Ricefields along RN7, Highlands |
Well, we enter here in an area I really appreciate.:)) However, I would only talk about things I know, not necessarily about all Malagasy regions cuisine.
Malagasy cuisine has real influences from Asia, Africa and Europe, at lesser extent.
Staple food is rice, all over the island. I know that cooking is different whether you are invited in Tana or in coastal cities. Main difference I see is the use of coconut milk in coastal cuisine as in some coastal regions, rice is cooked with addition of coconut milk.
Also, in Antananarivo area (Tana) for instance, the rice we eat at bfast (softer) is different from the one we eat at noon lunch (harder & drier). The rice we eat at supper is the softest one. I noticed that the softer the rice, the drier the dish accompanying it: smoked zebu meat, fried fish and shrimps. Dry and hard rice (preferably not sticky) is for bouilon, stews.
Beside white rice, red rice is very popular too but lesser produced. Its grain uses to be round, the taste is sweeter.
Broadly speaking, rice is very important, it's our main source of carb. It's eaten three times a day though bread has replaced it in urban areas at breakfast. Still, noon lunch and supper are rice-based. The control of rice has been always crucial, since centuries.
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| Voanjobory proper to Malagasy and Créole cuisines |
Ingredients They include European veggies like carrots, peas, potato, cauliflower, cucumber as well as several sorts of cabbage travellers usually find in Asia: Chinese cabbage, pe-tsai (pak-choi), ti-sam, African originate manioc whose leaves are used for a national dish: ravitoto (ground manioc leaves cooked with pork meat).. hmmm.. yummy! A savourous sort of peas we use to eat originally comes from Indonesia, voanjobory (or "round peas"). Other name is "Bambara peaas". I know that Créole shops in France have them.
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| Grilled, boiled corn on cobb along RN7: safe for U |
My favourite snacks - Sambosa (name may vary to sambos, samossa according to the country), Indian fried triangles that are stuffed with spiced chopped meat;
- Masikita: garlic-and-ginger-marinaded-zebu-meat kebab. Real delight!! and great smell!!
- Mofo akondro: Banana beignet
- Mofosakay: watercress beignets with medium chili
- Mofoanana: watercress beignet
- Mofogasy: moulded rice flour snack (sweet & salted)
Also, riding along RN7, esp. between Tana and Antsirabe, you'd find stalls selling food products: either fruit, either tasteful corn on cobb like the one on the picture. Both are safe for the traveller. For fruit, just be sure to wash them and peel yourself.
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| Dry rice for romazava, please ! |
My favourite dishes I love them all but here are favourite ones:
- Akoho gasy or Malagasy style chicken : cooked with ginger
- Akoho rôti gasy: Roasted garlic-marinaded chicken
- Varanga: fried shredded zebu-meat
- Trondro nahandro gasy or fish à la malgache: small to average size fish, cooked with green onions, tomato slices and streaky bacon slices.
- Patsa voaendy: fried tiny shrimps
- Voanjobory sy henakisoa: stew of voanjobory (peas) and pork meat
- Romazava créole: rich bouillon with several sorts of anana (leaves): up to 7 sorts of anana; fat zebu meat...
- Ravitoto sy henakisoa: ground manioc leaves cooked with pork
Though they are not Malagasy dishes, Madagascar magret de canard (grilled duck fillet) and foie gras are delightful and can compare with French ones.
Oooh! how I could forget it, I love grilled seafood and grilled river and estuary fish too.
PS:
- Patsa are tiny shrimps (some say "krills") are good source of calcium. Ro-patsa (krills stock with zebu meat) is widely used as a stock dish as well. special taste. Perfect for new-born, post-partum era & recovering organisms.
- Ron'akoho (chicken & ginger stock) is a good pick-me-up dish, perfect after long roadtrips, fatigue...
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| Chicken & ginger stock (bowl); blood cooked rice |
Meat.. very little room for vegetarians As for meat: pork meat, poultry, tasteful zébu meat, mutton, goat. Zébu is this kind of humped ox. See the zebu pic!!
And of course, fish and seafood.
As for fruit, all European fruits grow in Madagascar as well as Asia jack fruit, litchis, several sorts of banana, pineapple, papaya, carambole, all sorts of mango.. everything you want indeed :-) even the sop fruits (soft sop, sweet sop, custard sop)
Condiments: garlic, ginger, chili paste, at lesser extent, pepper, curry. Pepper and curry are used in seasoning of hors d'oeuvre (French or Asian style). Coastal cities that use to cook with cocnut milk have some curry dishes too. Chili paste is served with meal, and not cooked with. It is made of two or three types of chili, oil, ginger, garlic. Those ingredients are going to be mixed together to give an odour that even a non-chili person (like me) would love.
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| Prosperous Vakinankaratra region (along RN7) |
Rice at breakfast!
Traditional Malagasy breakfast in Tana included soft rice and kitoza (dried zebu meat).
Then rice was abandoned in favour of hot beverage plus Mofogasy. Mofogasy are little sweet cakes made with rice flour that are cooked in oiled ramekins. This is typically breakfast in countryside and though I am used to baguette bread, I am a kind af nostalgic of this type of breakfast. I am lucky enough to live in a rural area and have people who still make Mofogasy and deliver them home in week-end mornings.
In urban Tana, breakfast is made of hot beverages (milk, coffee, tea and, at lesser extent, chocolate) plus baguette bread. Plus honey, butter, pots of jam (several fruit jams are available there).
However, as time is hard, some components disappear from breakfast tables and baguette bread may be replaced by cheaper carbo like corn, or Mofogasy. A friend who just returned from Tana (Easter 2003) told me that only few families can afford butter and jam at breakfast. I guess that people would be clever enough to be on cheaper carbs and run everyday life as usual :-)
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| Manioc leaves, for making of ravitoto |
Usual cooking We would distinguish rich dishes for sundays and celebration days from light dishes. Food is quite balanced as Malagasy people know what to eat after feasts.
Light dishes are, often, leaves'bouillon (stock). Leaves may be cabbages, watercress or anandrano in its Malagasy name, anamamy (a local leaf belonging to spinach family), pumpkin leaves... a whole range of leaves.. also peas stocks (beans, voanjobory, pois du Cap)... Leaves or peas are cooked with zébu meat.
Rich dishes are made of vegetables cooked with pork meat or fat zébu meat sometimes. Basically, many of light dishes ingredients can be used in rich dishes only the meat changes: from meager zébu meat to pork. Fat zébu meat (esp. rump meat is delicious cooked as confit wit just onion or garlic). Eat with rice. It's delicious. In order to damp dry meal, we prepare a relish made from chopped tomato and green onions. Or light bouillon made of onion, leaves and water.
National dishes:
- Vorontsiloza: turkey à la Malagasy;
- Ravitoto sy henakisoa: ground manioc leaves cooked with pork
- Romazava: rich bouillon with several sorts of leaves (up to 7 leaves), fat zebu meat...
Meat is either cooked with vegetables, grilled, dried and smoked. A traditional way of preserving meat and fish was smoking them (kitoza). Poultry meat can also be used for bouillon.
A tip: After long journeys, days of hard work, disease, try the local pick-me-up dish: Ron'akoho sy sakamalao... Chicken bouillon with ginger. I see you grimacing, thinking of fat chicken meat we have in Europe... No, no, forget about that! .. Meat in general has a great taste as it is not as fat as European meat. Livestock, cattle, fowls live in open air and use to eat grass, corn.. "biological" food. This chicken bouillon is a real delight!
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Something you could buy along the road - Chocolate
- Vanilla
- Fruit (esp. in summer)
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 Comments for Norali about Madagascar | | | | |
Trekki Fri Jan 23, 2009 19:54 UTC
Oh simply wow!! I saw some photos today of Tsingies (?) and then found the river and now I am dreaming of paddling there... I will be back for more very soon! Thanks Norali, you lucky girl :-)) | Helga67 Sun Jan 11, 2009 19:33 UTC
i don't know yet what I want to see/do when in Mada, but you already gave me a good inside in your country | youssef09 Mon Mar 3, 2008 12:35 UTC
very intersting work ;; well done NORALI , greetings from algiers | Turtleshell Fri Feb 29, 2008 15:29 UTC
Greetings to the "Land out of Time". |
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