Gastronomic Guide

 Angolan cuisine is based mainly on the Portuguese (due to imposition of acculturation) and on the adaptations of dishes from Lusuphone and European countries. Thanks to this cultural mixing our cuisine is diversified with an extended array of flavors and textures to please almost every food taste.

The tasty and intensely seasoned food ranges from delicious tapas and samoosa type appetizers to meat seafood and fish meals. When visiting Angola also save some space to taste treats from bakeries (breads, cakes and pastries) as well as natural fruit ice-cream shakes and juices.

Our native cuisine is equally rich and flavorful. Typically an ethnic meals' main component is the funge (cooked polenta type dough made from corn or yucca flour mixed with water and seasoned with salt) which is served with a saucy mix of vegetables and fish or meat. The yucca flour funge is more appreciated in the northern part of the country while southerners prefer their funge made with corn flour.

Some prominent native delicacies are:

• appetizers - kitaba (crunchy peanut paste), fried cassava, baked or boiled banana-bread and chikuanga (moist bread made from cassava flour served wrapped in banana leaves; a typical northeast treat).
 
• entrees - chicken moamba (palm tree oil based stew served with funge), calulu or 'funge de peixe' (fresh or smoked fish stew with okra and cassava leaves, cooked in palm tree oil and served with funge), kangica (pinto beans and white corn cooked in palm tree oil), red beans in palm tree oil, mufete (grilled fish served with onion salsa and farofa - ground toasted cassava), kisaka (vegetarian dish made of mashed cassava leaves), muzongué (soup with fish cassava and a hint of palm tree oil served with coarse cassava flour), chicken cabidela (intensely vinegar seasoned stew) and jinguinga (tripe stew).
• sweets - matete (white corn and milk porridge), crunchy peanut brittle, coconut brittle, sweet peanut toffee and crushed peanut toffee.
• cocktails - maluvu (fermented palm tree juice drink, it's very appreciated in the north) and kissângua or ocissangua (a typical southern drink made from corn flour fermented in water for a few days).

Folklore
A great number of once popular festivals and traditions disappeared due to several factors - society's evolution, acculturation, change of religious faith and the civil war. Of the few remaining most now take place in rural areas and some in the outer skirts of the urban centers.

Carnival - In the 1960s and early 1970s Angola had the second best Mardi Gras parade in the world! After 1975, three decades of economic constraints resulted in the demotivation by members of carnival's groups to the impoverishment and loss of luster in the carnival celebration. During those years, Carnival was mainly celebrated at home parties. Nowadays better financial times have enabled the groups to start restoring, little by little, the splendor of our biggest parade.

Komba - A 30 day period of remembrance and commemoration of a deceased person's life. The purpose of a komba is to nurture the attachment the recently deceased may still have to material things with offerings of food and drinks. Thus, for the each day of a komba the decedent's family provides food and drinks and family members friends and acquaintances gather to remember the one that has passed.
On the 30th day a mass is held to break all ties of the deceased to the world of the living and to send him/her to eternal rest.

Alambamento - is the gifting of valuables to the bride's parents by the groom and his family. The bride bridal gift includes money, fabric and textiles and merchandise (cattle, grain and/or food). Commonly alambamento's parties are celebrated with the killing of a calf and performance of tribal dances.
The bride price is part of a traditional wedding rite because rural societies have the woman as the main family figure. She's the one that farms to provide for the family and most importantly she's the one only that can ensure the clan prosperity and continuance through child bearing. Thus a woman leaving her parents home to get married is seen as a great loss of manpower and therefore they are entitled to compensation.

Capoeira de Angola - the famous fighting dance of bodies swaying in slow and harmonious movements is almost under practicing extinction in Angola. During colonization its practice was prohibited and as time passed it became less known. Currently there's a wish by sports enthusiasts to re-launch the practice of capoeira in Angola, its place of birth.