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Cooking food that lasts with songs and laughter in Lesotho

By Guest
October 21, 2011 at 10:00 am

Caroline Maxwell is our PR and public affairs planning officer. She was in Lesotho this week to visit Red Cross projects teaching communities how to protect their food supplies.

When you step into the community kitchen in the south eastern Quthing district of Lesotho, your senses are hit by the commotion surrounding you. Firstly the aroma of fruit jams and vegetable stews heating on the stove. Secondly it’s the sound of the cooks singing rhythmic songs in Sesotho, their local language about their love for life and cooking, and finally you have the sight of a rainbow collection of jars on the shelves filled with food such as beetroot pickle, peach jam, stewed spinach and tomato chutney.

It has the hustle and bustle just like any other kitchen, but this community kitchen not only produces great food it has also become a sign of hope for the local people.

Their village, Portmani, is part of the British Red Cross and Lesotho Red Cross Societies’ integrated community home-based care and food security programme. The programme began in 2010 and aims to help vulnerable people in four districts in Lesotho become more resilient to HIV and food insecurity.

With the help of care facilitators and food security officers, the Red Cross is helping people with HIV and related diseases, orphans and vulnerable children, the elderly and other members of the community by providing seeds, tools and training so that they can grow and eat variety of nutritious fruits and vegetables – all from the comfort of their own gardens.

Despite unreliable weather conditions such as recent low rainfall, the local community are still able to enjoy their produce thanks to the innovative fruit and vegetable preservation recipes that are developed and shared from the Quthing kitchen.

One of the local residents, Molenepu (42) told me: “My favourite is the tomato jam. We’re able to grow lots of tomatoes and sometimes you think what else can I make with them? The recipe for the tomato jam is so simple to follow.


“My children love to eat it with bread as a tasty snack. And the great thing is that it lasts for many months because it is preserved. We are so grateful for this Red Cross programme. Before we struggled to eat, but now we have much more choice. It’s so much fun learning new recipes in the community kitchen.”

Here’s one of the preservative recipes for peach marmalade, straight from the Quthing kitchen in Lesotho:

Peach marmalade
Ingredients:
12 medium-sized firm ripe peaches
1 large lemon or 2 small lemons
1 small orange
1kg sugar
½ teaspoon ground ginger

Method:
1. Rinse and plunge peaches into boiling water to loosen the skins.
2. Plunge the peaches into cold water.
3. Gently slip of the skins with your fingers or a knife.
4. Cut into halves, remove and discard the pips.
5. Coarsely chop peaches.
6. Finely slice lemon and orange.
7. Combine lemon, orange and peaches in a saucepot and simmer gently for 15-10 minutes, until the orange and lemon rinds are tender.
8. Add the sugar and ginger and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
9. Boil rapidly until it reaches the jellying point.
10. Pour into warm sterilised jars and seal.

Enjoy!

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 10:00 am and is filed under Health and social care, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Anna Tandy

    What a great recipe it tastes delicious. Maybe we could get lots of recipes from overseas and make a Red Cross International Cook book, to sell to all our members. I am willing to do this as a volunteer, what do you think?

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This is a guest post. The British Red Cross has a huge number of staff, volunteers and beneficiaries around the world with inspiring stories to share.

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