StapleZanzibar
Wali wa Nazi
Rice cooked in coconut milk, served under every curry and grilled fish on the islands. The first thing a Zanzibari cook teaches and the hardest to get exactly right.
Serves 6 · 35 minutes
Indians of Zanzibar
The financiers of the clove and ivory economy — Gujarati, Kutchi and Bohra merchant families who bankrolled the Omani sultanate, built the stone town's finest houses, and largely left within a decade of the 1964 revolution.
Identity
Population: Perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 before 1964; a few thousand today
Location: Stone Town, Zanzibar, with related communities on Pemba and along the mainland coast
Language: Gujarati, Kutchi and Konkani at home; Swahili in trade; English in schooling
Language family: Indo-European → Indo-Aryan (Gujarati, Kutchi); Niger-Congo → Bantu (Swahili)
Traditional governance: Caste and sectarian associations, temple and jamaat khana committees; the community held no political standing and did not seek any.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Bhatia and Hindu Gujarati traders
Wholesale merchants and the earliest substantial community.
Ismailis and Bohras
Shia communities with strong institutional structures and their own jamaat khanas.
Goan Catholics
A distinct community of clerks, cooks and musicians in colonial service.
Culture
Clothing: Indian dress at home and at festival; the Ismaili and Bohra communities each have their own distinctive dress; Swahili dress adopted for public occasions.
Food: Gujarati vegetarian cooking maintained precisely; the Zanzibari kitchen's Indian debts — the pilau spicing, the mishkaki, the urojo soup — are considerable and rarely credited.
Ceremonies: Diwali and Navratri; Muharram among the Shia communities; Goan feast days; the Hindu temple and the Ismaili jamaat khana were the community's institutional centres.
Marriage customs: Strict endogamy by caste and sect, with spouses sought in Kutch, Gujarat and across the Indian Ocean network from Aden to Bombay to Durban.
Initiation rites: Apprenticeship in the family firm; schooling at the community's own institutions, several of which were the best on the island.
Food & Recipes
Every dish the Atlas publishes for Zanzibar and Tanzania, at national rather than community level — 21 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
Zanzibar
9 dishes
National dishZanzibar
Pweza wa Nazi
Octopus stewed in coconut milk with lime, cardamom and chilli, the dish Zanzibar is known for. Tenderising the octopus properly is most of the work.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
National dishZanzibar
Mchuzi wa Samaki wa Nazi
also Fish in coconut curry
Reef fish simmered in coconut milk with tamarind, turmeric and green mango, the dish that most concisely explains Zanzibar's position in the Indian Ocean.
Serves 6 · 50 minutes
Street foodZanzibar
Urojo
also Zanzibar mix
A tangy turmeric and mango soup piled with bhajia, crisps, boiled potato and chutneys, assembled to order at Forodhani night market. Every stall makes it slightly differently.
Serves 6 · 1 hour
Street foodZanzibar
Zanzibar Mishkaki
also Forodhani skewers
Beef skewers grilled at the Forodhani night market in Stone Town, sweeter and more heavily spiced than the mainland version, finished with tamarind.
Serves 6 · 40 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating
Festival & feastZanzibar
Zanzibari Biryani
Rice layered with spiced meat, fried onion and saffron and sealed to steam, made for weddings and Eid. Cardamom, clove and cinnamon are grown a few miles from the kitchen.
Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes
Festival & feastZanzibar
Kashata
also Coconut brittle, Kashata ya nazi
Grated coconut or peanuts cooked into caramelised sugar with cardamom and cut into diamonds. The sweet of Zanzibar's markets and of every Eid table.
Serves Makes about 30 pieces · 35 minutes
Regional specialityZanzibar
Mkate wa Kumimina
A soft baked rice cake with coconut and cardamom, whose name means poured bread. Cut in wedges and eaten with tea or at the end of a meal.
Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus soaking
Drink & sweetZanzibar
Spice Tea
also Chai ya tangawizi
Black tea boiled with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and black pepper, using the spices the islands were colonised for. Drunk all day and offered to every visitor.
Serves 4 · 20 minutes
Tanzania
12 dishes
StapleTanzania
Ugali
Maize meal cooked stiff and turned out as a mound, eaten with fish, beans or greens across the whole country. The measure of a cook is whether it holds together cleanly.
Serves 6 · 25 minutes
StapleTanzania
Makande
also Maize and bean stew
Maize and beans simmered slowly with coconut milk, the Chagga and Pare version of the East African staple. Richer and looser than Kenyan githeri.
Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes, plus soaking
National dishTanzania
Nyama Choma na Kachumbari
Goat grilled slowly over charcoal, chopped and eaten with a tomato and onion salad. Ordered by weight at a nyama choma joint and shared standing around the board.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
National dishTanzania
Mchemsho
also Boiled one-pot
Everything boiled together in one pot — plantain, potato, cassava, carrot, beans and meat — in a light broth. Northern Tanzania's household dinner, and what a Tanzanian cooks when feeding a crowd.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Street foodTanzania
Chipsi Mayai
A chip omelette cooked flat in a pan and cut in wedges, sold from every street griddle in Dar es Salaam and Arusha. Cheap, filling and universally eaten.
Serves 2 · 25 minutes
Street foodTanzania
Mishkaki
also Marinated beef skewers
Beef marinated in papaya, ginger and spice, threaded on sticks and grilled over charcoal on every Tanzanian street corner after dark. The papaya is what makes it tender.
Serves 6 · 45 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating
Festival & feastTanzania
Pilau
Spiced rice with beef or goat, made for weddings, Eid and Christmas. The onions must be fried genuinely dark, which is where the colour comes from rather than from any powder.
Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Festival & feastTanzania
Mkate wa Sinia
also Vitumbua tray bread, Rice tray cake
A soft, faintly sweet rice and coconut cake steamed or baked in a tray, cut into diamonds and served at coastal weddings and at the end of Ramadan.
Serves 10 · 1 hour, plus 6 hours soaking and rising
Regional specialityTanzania
Mchuzi wa Samaki
Fish curry in coconut milk with tamarind, from the Swahili coast. The tamarind is what separates the coastal version from anything cooked inland.
Serves 6 · 45 minutes
Regional specialityTanzania
Ndizi na Nyama
also Machalari, Green banana and beef stew
Green cooking bananas stewed with beef until they take on the meat's flavour and thicken the pot. The Chagga dish of Kilimanjaro, and one of Tanzania's most beloved.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
Drink & sweetTanzania
Kahawa na Tangawizi
Black coffee boiled with ginger and sold from brass pots carried through the streets of Zanzibar and Dar, poured into tiny cups and drunk in one.
Serves 6 small cups · 20 minutes
Drink & sweetTanzania
Togwa
also Fermented maize drink
Lightly fermented maize and millet drink, sour and faintly fizzy, drunk cold through the day. Non-alcoholic, probiotic, and given to children and the sick.
Serves Makes 2 litres · 30 minutes, plus 24 hours fermenting
Stories & Oral Literature
Who Financed the ClovesEconomic history
Zanzibar's clove plantations and the ivory caravans into the interior ran on credit, and Indian merchant houses supplied it. Jairam Sewji's firm held the sultanate's customs farm for decades, effectively running the island's revenue. The system made a few families very wealthy and tied them to an economy built on plantation slavery, a connection historians have examined and the community's own accounts tend to pass over.
January 1964Historical account
The Zanzibar Revolution overthrew the sultanate and the Arab-dominated government in days. Thousands of Arabs and South Asians were killed and many more fled; property was nationalised in the years that followed. Within a decade most of the Indian community had gone, to Britain, Canada, India and Oman. Their houses stand in Stone Town with the carved doors still on them.
Proverbs
“The clove is picked by one hand and weighed by another.”
The division between growing and financing.
“A door tells you who built the house.”
The Gujarati doors of Stone Town, distinguishable from the Omani ones.
“We came for a season and stayed a century, then left in a week.”
1964, as the diaspora tells it.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Hindu cosmology among the Gujarati families; Shia Ismaili and Bohra Islamic tradition; Goan Catholicism; three distinct religious worlds in one small community.
Beliefs: Vaishnav and Jain Hinduism; Nizari Ismaili and Dawoodi Bohra Islam; Roman Catholicism among the Goans; each with its own building in Stone Town.
Ancestors: Families trace descent to specific towns in Kutch, Saurashtra and Goa; the diaspora keeps these genealogies carefully across four continents.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Krishna and Vishnu
Worshipped in the Hindu temples of Stone Town
The Aga Khan
Imam of the Nizari Ismailis, whose community was institutionally the strongest
Lakshmi
Honoured at Diwali, which for merchant families opened the accounting year
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Stone Town's tall merchant houses with interior courtyards, carved doors and long balconies; the temples and jamaat khanas of the community's quarters.
Building techniques: Coral rag and lime construction with Indian carpentry; the square-framed Gujarati door with lotus and chain motifs, distinct from the arched Omani form; balcony and fretwork joinery.
Village layout: Warehouse and shop at ground level, family above, courtyard within; the quarters clustered near the port and the customs house.
Artifacts
Gujarati carved doors
Craft
Square-framed doors with lotus and chain motifs, distinguishable from Omani arched forms.
Old Dispensary (Ithnashiri Dispensary)
Heritage site
Built by Tharia Topan in the 1890s, the most ornate building in Stone Town.
Hindu temples of Stone Town
Heritage site
Working temples in the heart of a Muslim city.
Customs and credit ledgers
Archive
Records of the firms that financed the clove and ivory economy.
Historical Timeline
1700s–1830s
Indian merchant houses establish themselves on Zanzibar; Omani rule moves its capital there in 1840.
1840s–1890s
Indian firms hold the customs farm and finance the clove and ivory trades.
1890–1963
British protectorate; the community expands in commerce, medicine and schooling.
January 1964
The Zanzibar Revolution; thousands are killed and most of the Indian community leaves.
1964–1970s
Property nationalisation completes the departure; the buildings remain and are now UNESCO-listed.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- UNESCO: Stone Town of ZanzibarUNESCO
- Britannica: ZanzibarEncyclopaedia Britannica
Premium & scholarly sources