Sun-Dried Fish · Preserved
Dried Zambezi Fish
Photo: Namibaxab / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The fishery follows the flood itself: fish spread across the plain to breed when it floods, and are caught in large numbers as the water drains back into the Zambezi.
Bream, tigerfish and other catches from the Upper Zambezi and Barotse floodplain are sun-dried or smoke-dried on racks along the riverbank, then sold in local markets to be soaked and stewed later. It's a way of turning a seasonal catch into a food that lasts.
Why it's made this way: Fishing communities on the Barotse floodplain rely on drying to make the Zambezi's seasonal abundance last through leaner months, in a province where fish makes up an outsized share of the local diet.
More from Zambia
Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.