By Clemence Tashaya
EENHANA – Some traditional food restaurants should foster promotion and safeguarding of a country’s culture and promote cultural and international tourism, a female traditional food restaurant proprietor here says.
Dortea Weyulu (46), the Manager of the Weyulu Traditional restaurant here was speaking on the sidelines of the Ohangwena Regional Youth and Food Expo which started on Sunday and ends tomorrow. She was hosting some officials from the Eenhana Town Council and Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) on Monday. “The food industry is one of the major drivers of the tourism industry and that can only happen when we make sure we preserve methods of preparing traditional dishes. A tourist gets to understand a people from the food they eat and so we cannot hope to impress when we serve food like lasagna in Africa. Rather we should serve our own traditional dishes such as Oshingali, Oshivambo chicken, Namukutwa with ondjove and Oshiwambo spinach,” Weyulu says.
She adds that it is important for domestic and cultural tourism players to work hand in hand with traditional authorities in the region so that their initiatives are in line with their projects. Weyulu’s restaurant offers a variety of traditional dishes and since opening in January, it has hosted various celebrities visiting the Ohangwena region. During the Youth and Food Expo, the restaurant has also been hosting young learners and other youths, coaching them on the importance of traditional meals.
Traditional food restaurants keep sprouting in Eenhana with more people shunning fast foods. Weyulu says at her restaurant, they ensure that the food they cook is produced at their farm and is purely traditional. “There have been complaints of some restaurants here in Eenhana serving off layer chicken instead of “road runners” or what we simply call “Oshiwambo” chicken from the farm but we make sure that we get our chickens from the farm as well as proper preservation.
A customer who spoke to Time Out at the expo, Daby Uupindi, was excited to be served with traditional food at the restaurant since she last ate it at a wedding function some three months ago. “We are happy to be eating our lunch and even supper here at the Youth and Food Expo because these days in these memekulu’s restaurant, they prepare the food in a real traditional method than some fast food outlets here. Did you taste the Oshiwambo chicken spiced with ondjove plus the spinach,” she asked
Patamoshela Shikokola who was also enjoying the meal could not hide her excitement saying, the Youth and Food Expo has come at the right time since it was month’s end. “As people and tribes from the north, that’s what we do culturally and traditionally, even at the village, we eat the same kind of food like the one we are buying here,” she said proudly.
Apart from traditional cuisines, most of the restaurants at the expo were selling raw traditional food, crafts, handicrafts and other traditional Oshiwambo clothes and chitenje or odhelela.