Saturday while interviewing vegetable wholesalers and retails at local markets I discovered a new food- malambe. It has a hard shell and soft greenish-brown fuzz on the outside. Inside the flesh is white, similar to the consistency of astronaut ice cream, and tastes like lemon. One fruit, pictured here, cost 1 mt. or 1/28th of a US dollar. The flesh was also being sold by the kilo for a much higher price. People make porridge from the flesh by cooking it with a combination of water, milk and sugar. Fairly large brown seeds must be removed. I’m curious about the nutritional content of malambe, as it seems somewhat insubstantial, yet the lemon taste makes me think I could be consuming high quantities on vitamin C.
The malambe fruit grows on the hinbondeiro tree, which can live to be hundreds of years old. The inside of the tree is hollow, somewhat resembling the inside of bamboo, this hollows means that the trees do not need a much water to prosper and grow. I have yet to see a hinbondeiro tree, as they are primarily found in Tete province to the north. The photo of the hindonbeiro tree below was given to me by Elizabeth, the CNFA project manager accompanying me on this assignment.
Farmers, Food, and Vegetables 
Thanks to Marcia and my trip to Gorongosa I learned that this is the famous baobob tree. At Gorongosa it was spelled enbondeiro rather than hinbondeiro- either way I’m glad I finnaly got to see this tree.
embondeiro!
Yes thank you. This year in Angola I learned that the baobab tree is embondeiro. Last year in Mozambique I questioned a couple of people and they were ensure of how to spell it and suggested hindonberio. Any chance this is an alternative spelling used in Mozambique while embondeiro is used in Angola? I myself have no idea!
Dear Kathryn, im Mozambican, living in Maputo, first of all i’d like to desagree with u because here in Mozambique we also speak portugues and in this language we say embondeiro as the angolan people say. May be in local language somebody say hindonberio, but in our official language “portugues” it’s not correct.
Oi Eugenio!
I think you a likely correct that someone was spelling embomdeiro as if they were speaking their local language and told me to write hindonbeiro. I like how the ‘b’ and the ‘d’ were transposed in their interpretation. I, of course, was no help because although I can speak Portuguese I never really learned to write it. The main point is that we all understand each other at the end of the day.
Give my best to Maputo! It’s been many years since I have seen it. Tenho saudades de Maputo. It will always be in my heart.
Kathryn