Gastronomy and holiday menus of the Malgaches

What typical dishes taste in Madagascar? The horizon of what you will eat at the table on the Red Island.

Malagasy people like to eat and they know very well to concoct local products with pork, beef or sheep. Any event that is important or not is the subject of a festive meal. In the great circumstances of the past, it was used to serve the famous rice "hanim-pitoloha" (menu with 7 ingredients) everyone raffles.

Malagasy gastronomy

To Madagascar rice is the essential basic food that is served at table every day, morning, noon and evening. There are various ways to cook it in Malagasy:

• cooked with large water to get some sort of creamy boil or not,
• cooked in the same way, but seasoned with bred, tomato and chives, all chopped finely then, with lobsters,
• cooked with just a little water to have at the end crunchy grains and accompanied by ranon’ampango (table water typically Malagasy) that is made with rice residues attached to the bottom of the pot.

During the major events, rice is cooked with cow's milk and then raised with honey fillet ( vary amin-dronono tondrahan-tantely ).

To accompany a large plate of white or red rice, all can be served provided it is salted. Meat, poultry, bred, vegetables or fish represent real delights from the Malagasy under the condition that they can be cooked according to local tradition.

Le hanim-pitoloha des Malgaches

In Madagascar, « Hanim-pitoloha » means party meals. This assumes that 7 different dishes are present simultaneously at the table.

In the days of kings, « vorombe sy henakisoa » (dwelling or goose and pork), « amalona sy henakisoa » (eel and pork) « varanga » (Zebu dried long cooked to water to have a sort of paste), “hen’omby ritra” (cooked beef without adding spices or condiments) and “henan-janak’omby sy tsaramaso” (bean veal) were menus of choice. The "trondro lafihana voanjobory, ovy, sosety or anandrano" (cooked fish on a bed of peas, potato, cabbage or cresson) is also a delight.

The ro mazava is also very popular in Malagasy. To make it, it is enough to cook beef meat, the bred of your choice together and with a small fire ( anamany : spilinthe, anamalaho : mafagne or ravim-bomanga : leaves of sweet potatoes), gigembre and “angivy” with an ounce of onion and tomato. After about 1h30 to 2h of cooking, you get a succulent broth that pass strangers do not fail to claim.

And dessert

To finish the meal, exotic fruits are numerous in Madagascar. Their so natural and organic flavors delight more than one, but nothing is worth the famous koban-dravina , a sweet peanut pâté with rice flour and then surrounded by banana leaves that were cooked for 48 hours before being served hot or cold. This delicious Malgache cake is always accompanied by a full-bodied coffee (preferably arabica).

Main photo credit: Sale of mango and lemon pears in Madagascar – Wikimedia – Jean-Louis Vandevivère