Finger Millet · Staple
Ubwali (Finger Millet Nshima)
Photo: Gerhard302 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The word for nshima changes with the region: what's ubwali in Bemba-speaking Kasama is nsima in Chewa areas and takes other names again along the Zambezi.
In Bemba-speaking Northern Province, the staple porridge Zambians elsewhere call nshima is traditionally pounded from finger millet flour and known as ubwali — denser, darker and earthier than the maize version. It's still cooked this way in and around Kasama.
Why it's made this way: Finger millet, alongside cassava, was historically the main crop of Bemba chitemene slash-and-burn agriculture in Northern Province, long before maize became Zambia's dominant staple, so ubwali remains the more traditional version of the dish here.
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