Botswana or Bust!

Botswana and Zambia are neighbors, so I expected their cuisines might be similar.  Turns out I was right! Wikipedia has a good introductory article on Botswanan cooking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswanan_cuisine

Remember nshima, the Zambia staple made from cornmeal?  Botswana has its own take on nshima, called "pap".  Also interesting, Botswana raises a lot of beef for food.  The national dish is seswaa, a kind of mashed up beef dish served over pap with gravy.

I've found a few good recipes for seswaa:
http://www.marga.org/food/int/botswana/seswaa.html
http://myhungrytum.com/2010/03/15/seswaa-botswana-national-dish-day-65dish-33/
http://foodivakitchen.blogspot.com/2010/09/seswaa-taste-of-botswana-in-my-kitchen.html 

These recipes are all very similar in basics:  each calls for boiling the meat in water until tender (about 2 1/2 hours) and then pounding it until it breaks down into shreds.  Seasonings are salt, onion and garlic.  The first recipe is my favorite because it calls for carmelizing the beef after boiling and shredding.  I'll also make a gravy out of the pot liqueur using either corn starch or flour, as recommended by the last two recipes.

So I now have the ingredients for a delicious Southern African feast:
- Nshima/Pap as the starch
- a Zambian style relish:  infishmia, the green vegetable dish boiled with peanut powder
- and the Botswana national dish, seswaa

One interesting aside on Botswana:  the country's wildlife reserves are major tourist attractions.  These reserves include Chobe National Park, which has the world's largest concentration of African elephants.