Funeral & Wedding Staple · Samp and Beans
Dikgobe (Samp and Beans)
Photo: Shoodho / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dikgobe is one of only two starches traditionally permitted at Setswana funerals, alongside sorghum, tying the dish as much to mourning as to celebration.
Dried maize kernels (samp) are simmered for hours with sugar beans, peas, tomato, onion and chilli until they soften into a thick, stew-like porridge. It's cooked in large communal pots for weddings, funerals and other gatherings around Gaborone, then ladled out alongside meat or eaten on its own.
Why it's made this way: Its low-oil, slow-cooked simplicity and its role at both funerals and weddings have made dikgobe a symbol of unity and continuity in Setswana culture, prepared the same way for generations.
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