Is chambo overrated?

Had my father been alive, may God rest his soul, I probably would not have had the courage to entertain, let alone speak out loud these thoughts.

From when I was a little girl, he did not have to say it out loud that chambo is God’s greatest gift to Malawi and the undocumented eighth wonder of the world. I could see the pride with which he said, “katsitseni zinthu m’galimoto [please unload stuff from the car].” Forget the fact that in this case, the chambo would have been hanging from the side rear view mirror of the Ministry of Information Landrover.

The care and detailed instructions that accompanied the fish from my mother was enough testimony that chambo was gold, the best fish ever. As soon as it got into the house, it had to be gutted and scaled before being prepared or stored. By age of 16, I knew that if it was the dark skinned big male chambo, it had to be stewed, “yaboilo” with lots of tomatoes, uncovered until it was ready. If it was the medium female chambo, it was perfect for open fire roasting while the bigger female chambo needed to be deep fried. You could not mess up the instructions. It was chambo, it was the gold of the kitchen and had to be treated with the utmost respect and care.

Everytime we had chambo, the whole house was in a celebratory mood. We had eaten the best. At that point, it remained unspoken that we believed that chambo was the best fish in the world. We did not have to say it though as it was common knowledge not only in our home, but  with our neighbours too and, eventually, I realised that it was regarded highly throughout the country. We were a people known for our warm hearts and our good chambo.

After I started working, a trip to Mzuzu changed everything. In 1995, I ate nsima with batara. I was shocked. It was so good that for the entire week I was in Mzuzu, I ate batara every single day, first, at the golf club, then later at Mrs. Mponela’s restaurant. When I got home, I spoke of batara, but nobody paid any attention. My mother had even made chambo for dinner. This was the day my suspicions were finally confirmed. There were better fish in the sea. Literally.

A few years later, I had the priviledge of living in the Middle East. I was introduced to a fish dish from Iraq called masgouf. It was so tasty that my beloved batara paled in comparison. I later tried salmon and a million other fish and realised that perhaps my mind had been manipulated. chambo was just a basic fish. It was not as great as we had hyped it to be. In fact, batara ranks highest, then kampango, third is matemba a domasi.  For me, chambo is not even in the top three.

Later, as work took me to several places, I was shocked to realise that tilapia, the fish family that chambo belongs to, is actually found everywhere in the world. Wherever there is a body of water, Tilapia will be there. It varies in taste depending on the water source, but a tilapia is a tilapia and never among the most liked or costly fish.

So how did we get here? You see, I had trusted my parents so much, when they told me santa is real, I believed them until I was old enough to figure it out for myself that it does not exist. When they told me in not so many words that chambo is the best fish in the world, I also believed them until I tested batara.

This is the power of parenting. Parents, especially fathers, hold so much power over their daughters that if you instill the right values in a child, those values last a life time. Although my father taught me to speak my mind always, he also taught me the importance of respecting elders and not questioning their reasoning in public.

I can, therefore, only ask now that he is gone. Is chambo overrated?