Wild Fruit · Zambezi Valley
Masau
Photo: Hans Hillewaert / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
This wild fruit tree actually originated in India and reached Zimbabwe centuries ago via Arab trade routes through coastal Mozambique — it just naturalised so thoroughly it now reads as a purely local wild food.
Masau is a small, tart-sweet wild fruit that ripens on thorny trees across the Zambezi Valley between June and September. Families and traders gather it to eat fresh, sun-dry it for later, or process it into porridge, cakes and the fermented drink mahewu — and even distil it into a potent spirit called kachasu.
Why it's made this way: Masau grows wild rather than being cultivated, making it an important free food source and cash crop for Zambezi Valley communities in the lean months between main harvests.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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