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Southern Staple · Dried Zebu

Kitoza (Dried & Smoked Zebu Strips)

Kitoza (Dried & Smoked Zebu Strips) — street food from Toliara, Madagascar
Photo: SurreyJohn / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendors sell kitoza both ready-to-eat as a snack and as a rehydratable ingredient, so the same strip of meat might be nibbled dry off a stall or dropped straight into a simmering stew.

Strips of zebu, salted and either sun-dried or smoked over a slow fire, turn into a dense, chewy jerky, sold hanging at meat stalls and market butcher counters across Madagascar's drier south and west.

Why it's made this way: In Madagascar's arid south, where refrigeration is scarce and cattle are wealth on the hoof, drying and smoking meat has long been the way to preserve a zebu slaughtered for a big family occasion.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.