Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Zimbabwe recipes, part of Southern Africa. This page provides links to all the Zimbabwean recipes presented on this site, with 25 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Zimbabwean recipes added to this site.

The country of Zimbabwe is bordered by two great rivers, the Limpopo and the Zambezi. These provide a great quantity of fish which are a staple of the country's diet. Maize (corn) is an important food crop and it forms the carbohydrate staple of the diet. Traditional meals consist of breads, such as pot brood (pot bread), patarolle (sweet potato rolls), mashed veggies, isidudu (pumpkin pap), soups (maize soup) and stews (tomato bredie, Potato stew with Chicken or potjiekos [potjie]). As might be expected the overall cuisine of Zimbabwe is more similar to that of Southern Africa rather than East Africa.

These recipes, for the major part, originate in Zimbabwe. Otherwise they are fusion recipes with major Zimbabwean influences.

Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare, and the second largest is Bulawayo.

A country of roughly 15 million people as per 2022 census, Zimbabwe's largest ethnic group are the Shona, who make up 80% of the population, followed by the Northern Ndebele and other smaller minorities. Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most common. Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

Beginning in the 9th century, during its late Iron Age, the Bantu people (who would become the ethnic Shona) built the city-state of Great Zimbabwe; the city-state became one of the major African trade centres by the 11th century but was abandoned by the mid 15th century.[16] From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, followed by the Rozvi and Mutapa empires. The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes demarcated the Rhodesia region in 1890 when they conquered Mashonaland and later in 1893 Matabeleland after the First Matabele War. Company rule ended in 1923 with the establishment of Southern Rhodesia as a self-governing British colony. In 1965, the white minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia. The state endured international isolation and a 15-year guerrilla war with black nationalist forces; this culminated in a peace agreement that established de jure sovereignty as Zimbabwe in April 1980.

Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980, when his ZANU–PF party won the general election following the end of white minority rule and has remained the country's dominant party since. He was the President of Zimbabwe from 1987, after converting the country's initial parliamentary system into a presidential one, until his resignation in 2017. Under Mugabe's authoritarian regime, the state security apparatus dominated the country and was responsible for widespread human rights violations.[17] From 1997 to 2008 the economy experienced consistent decline (and in the latter years, hyperinflation), though it has since seen rapid growth after the use of currencies other than the Zimbabwean dollar was permitted. In 2017, in the wake of over a year of protests against his government as well as Zimbabwe's rapidly declining economy, a coup d'état resulted in Mugabe's resignation. Emmerson Mnangagwa has since served as Zimbabwe's president.

The name 'Zimbabwe' stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, a medieval city (Masvingo) in the country's south-east. Two different theories address the origin of the word. Many sources hold that 'Zimbabwe' derives from dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as 'houses of stones' (dzimba = plural of imba, 'house'; mabwe = plural of ibwe, 'stone'). The Karanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the modern-day Masvingo province. Archaeologist Peter Garlake claims that 'Zimbabwe' represents a contracted form of dzimba-hwe, which means 'venerated houses' in the Zezuru dialect of Shona and usually references chiefs' houses or graves.

Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia (1898), Rhodesia (1965), and Zimbabwe Rhodesia (1979). The first recorded use of 'Zimbabwe' as a term of national reference dates from 1960 as a coinage by the black nationalist Michael Mawema, whose Zimbabwe National Party became the first to officially use the name in 1961. The term 'Rhodesia' — derived from the surname of Cecil Rhodes, the primary instigator of British colonisation of the territory—was perceived by African nationalists as inappropriate because of its colonial origin and connotations.

Food and Cuisine:

Like in many African countries, the majority of Zimbabweans depend on a few staple foods. Mealie meal, white maize meal), is used to prepare sadza or isitshwala, as well as porridge known as bota or ilambazi. Sadza is made by mixing the cornmeal with water to produce a thick paste/porridge. After the paste has been cooking for several minutes, more cornmeal is added to thicken the paste. This is usually eaten as lunch or dinner, usually with sides such as gravy, vegetables (spinach, chomolia, or spring greens/collard greens), beans, and meat (stewed, grilled, roasted, or sundried). Sadza is also commonly eaten with curdled milk (sour milk), commonly known as 'lacto' (mukaka wakakora), or dried Tanganyika sardine, known locally as kapenta or matemba. Bota is a thinner porridge, cooked without the additional cornmeal and usually flavoured with peanut butter, milk, butter, or jam. Bota is usually eaten for breakfast.

Rice, pasta, and potato-based foods (chips [fries] and mashed potato) also make up part of Zimbabwean cuisine. A local favourite is rice cooked with peanut butter, which is taken with thick gravy, mixed vegetables and meat.[304] A potpourri of peanuts known as nzungu, boiled and sundried maize, black-eyed peas known as nyemba, and Bambara groundnuts known as nyimo makes a traditional dish called mutakura.