The joys of pap in Namibia

It is international Blog Action Day (BAD) 2011 this Sunday 16 October and the topic for this year is food. Last year the FCO took an active part in this event and is encouraging its bloggers around the world to contribute to the food theme from our unique international and local perspectives.

Having only been in Namibia a few months, I immediately turned to the High Commission’s local staff to get a better insight into typical Namibian foods and their relevance to local culture. This turned out to be a far simpler exercise than I thought.

When I first arrived at Post, I asked all 18 local staff members (representing 12 different local tribal groupings) to contribute a page to a Staff Album. It was a chance to share any information they wanted on their interests, families, skills and individual cultures. It was also a chance for me, as the only British diplomatic officer serving in the mission in Windhoek, to find out more about them all, and Namibian culture and preoccupations in general.

There was an enthusiastic response. Everyone completed a page and provided information on their language skills (most impressive), secret skills (eye opening) and interests (extremely varied). I discovered that staff members owned cattle, boasted athletic and fishing skills, made fabulous novelty birthday cakes in their spare time, and even harboured encyclopaedic knowledge of football World Cup finals. (I can really recommend this exercise to all teams to help break down barriers, learn more about your colleagues and build up a better team ethos.)

 One theme that clearly emerged across all the entries was the importance of food. And one food featured prominently: pap. Nearly everyone listed pap as their favourite food.Pap (pronounced /ˈpɑːp/), is a traditional porridge made from mielie-meal (ground maize or other grain), and is a staple food across southern Africa (the Afrikaans word pap is taken from Dutch and simply means “porridge” or “gruel”). The maize flour used to make pap is relatively coarse, making it more comparable to polenta than finer corn flour. In the north of Namibia, pap is made from mahangu – pearl millet.

Most staff members listed ‘meat and pap’ as their favourite dish, which is the unofficial Namibian national dish. Some elaborated with details of accompanying omboga (cabbage), red meat dishes and fish.

I decided to dig a little deeper. I asked Jacob, one of our security guards from the Rukwangali tribe, what it was that made pap so special to Namibians. “It tastes good and makes us strong” was the simple response. It should never be served with sauce and the best mahangu is mixed with maize (a common practice in the north west Kavango region where he is from). I asked if this made the pap lumpy and received a horrified look in response. “Pap is never lumpy”, I was firmly told.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Daniel, our Ovambo gardener, shaking his head. “Pap should never be served with added maize,” he clarified. Pap tasted much better when served with separate vegetables and fresh meat or fish (the common practice in the northern region bordering Angola where he is from). I asked who made the best pap in his family and was told it was his mother. But my subsequent inquiry into the secret of her superior culinary technique was met with the firm rejoinder that Ovambo men never busied themselves with cooking. So it was clear that I was not going to get my hands on the secret of cooking perfect pap through him.

I turned for technical advice instead to our Herero housekeeper Magdalena, who had also listed pap and meat as her favourite food. At this point I should probably explain that there has been a distinct switch from fine dining towards fishfingers at the Residence since the arrival of my family with three small children (a first for the mission). Staff have had to make numerous adjustments to avoid tripping over toys and other such new workplace hazards.

So, given this background of recent change, Magdalena barely raised an eyebrow when asked to assist in an ambassadorial pap making project earlier this week.

Making pap turned out to be much harder than I thought. The maize meal absorbed all the bubbling water in my pot a lot faster than I expected and I was left with a bright white gloopy mass resembling wall paper paste. Spurred on by Magdalena’s encouragement to beat it a lot harder, I pounded away and ended up with a heavy porridge that clearly didn’t threaten Magdalena’s prowess in the kitchen.

However, the availability of pap is under threat in some parts of the country this year. Although Namibia is the driest country in sub Saharan Africa, recent extreme flooding in the most densely inhabited north of the country has impacted food production this year. Crops were ruined in deluged fields, which set back the planting cycle, heightening concerns that communities surviving via subsistence farming in the northern Caprivi and Kavango regions will not have enough grain to take them through to the next harvest.So an abundance of pap is something to be celebrated here in Namibia. Shared bowls of pap (scooped direct with pinched fingers) bring communities together over meals and act as a social leveller.In an attempt to replicate this communal Namibian approach to food with the High Commission staff, everyone has been asked to bring a dish representing their own culture to this year’s Staff Christmas party. This will help to keep down costs and enable us all to sample each other’s tribal foods. It is already clear that many dishes will involve pap of some sort. I am already looking forward to tasting some properly prepared pap and comparing regional variations.

After my own pap making experiments this week, I intend to come armed with an apple crumble.