Home-made Oshikundu

Oshikundu is one of my favorite things aside from raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.  According to my host brother Immanuel, Oshikundu has been around for hundreds of years.  Immanuel is a 15 year old Owambo native, which makes him kind of an expert.  He knows what's up. It is a drink made from crushed millet seed which is fermented for less than a day.  The result is a carbonated beverage which - when mixed with sugar - makes a sweet, fizzy drink!  Almost all of my co-teachers in Endola drink Oshikundu on a daily basis.  I do too, and it makes my co-teachers think i'm a weird, integrated Oshilumbu (white person).  The content of Oshikundu closely resembles what many of you in America can find in most grocery stores and health-food stores, Kombucha.  Kombucha is made by fermenting tea using a SCOBY- (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast).  You can make kombucha at home but would need a previous generation of SCOBY "mushroom", or culture.  Another drink that is very similar to Oshikundu and Kombucha is Rejuvelac, which is made by sprouting whole wheat grains, then soaking the sprouted grains for 48-96 hours to cause fermentation.  Contrary to popular belief, neither oshikundu, kombucha, nor rejuvelac can get you drunk... bummer? The alcohol content is less than 0.5% (beer contains upwards of 4%, wine contains 12% or more of alcohol content by volume).  The result: a sweet, fizzy drink which contains a ton of beneficial bacteria which aid digestion and improve well-being.... or something like that.

The interesting thing about Oshikundu is how different methods of combining ingredients cause a wide variety of tastes. For PCV's in Namibia, buy a bag of Oshikundu mix (Meme Mahangu brand, it contains millet flour and a small bag of sorghum flour for added taste).  The instructions on the bag will say to mix the flour with a small quantity of boiling water (enough to make it "wet"), and let it ferment for 24 hours or so.  Then add a specified quantity of water and/or sugar for taste and further fermentation.  The Owambo's add boiling water to the flour at night, and also add a little bit of the same-day's Oshikundu to facilitate the overnight fermentation.  In the morning, more water is added along with some sugar (which speeds up fermentation).


During PST, i experimented with home-made oshikundu and failed miserably.  I thought that the fresh flour would ferment overnight if mixed with boiling hot water.  It does not. The result was a flour-ey drink which made me (and Renee too, probably) feel rather ill.  After living on an Owambo homestead for quite some time now, I am learning to perfect the ways of the old-school Oshikundu masters. Call me weird but I drink it at school every day and do not feel satisfied without it!