Likoma brings its food to Blantyre

Blantyre residents have a rare chance of tasting the traditional food from Likoma Island when Pamudzi Eatery hosts a strictly Likoma Island Cuisine day on July 27.

The event, designed to drum up support for the Likoma Cultural Summer Festival and Pamudzi Eatery popular for its traditional menu, will host the promotional event dubbed ‘Pamudzi Meets Likoma Island’.

The festival’s organiser Patrick Chikoti said the festival is part of their intervention to remove the misconceptions that people have about the island and the surrounding areas such as Chizumulu, Nyasa Province and Songea.

Chikoti said in an interview: “There are so many stereotypes which are thrown around about this place about travelling on water and living here. But these are all lies. We want to project the strengths of this place as an attractive tourist destination.”

He said one of the leading activities for this year’s festival is the promotion of the unique traditional food from the Island and areas around it which will be made available to the revellers during the festival.

“The event in Blantyre at Pamudzi provides a platform for people to sample the Likoma Island cuisine prior to the actual festival in October. We also want to use the opportunity to popularise the festival to a large audience,” he said.

Pamudzi Eatery owner Loveness Msanide Daka  said in an interview they want to “bring Likoma  island” to Blantyre by serving the best traditionally prepared food from the Island on the day.

Daka said: “We have an idea of what really defines traditional food on Likoma Island. People should expect well prepared nsima from cassava flour (Kondowole), fresh usipa, butter fish, beans, Chigwada and all that.”

The Likoma Island Summer Festival was inaugurated in 2014 but last year they took a break. n