I just got back from a four-day-long village stay in Kabudula, about 40 miles into the bush from our home in Lilongwe. Four days of visiting people in their homes, being stuffed with foods I’ve never tried before, and speaking Chichewa. Rather than just try to describe everything with words, I thought I’d try with pictures, one per day until I run out of good ones.

The roasted maize in this picture isn’t terribly exotic, but I’ve never had squash (gourds?) like this before. They look pretty much like normal squash, but they taste like potatoes.

I also got to try “psyipsya,” a local fruit that looks like an olive and tastes, well, let’s just say I don’t see it becoming a major export.

Then there is the sugar cane. You use your teeth to strip off the woody outside, then bite off a chunk from the inside, chew it up, and spit it out. It tastes good, but is awfully rough on the gums.

My biggest food failure was what I assume to have been a chicken neck. I managed to eat all of the skin and fatty stuff on the outside, and scraped some bits of meat off of the bony structure inside. Then the next day a Malawian received a similar piece of meat, and I learned the correct way to eat it: Crunch, crunch, crunch.