During the Ichilanga Mulilo, the bride and her family welcome the groom with a feast
The first time my now-husband told me he loved Ethiopian food as much as I did, I thought he was trying way too hard to impress me. Despite the prevalence of Ethiopian restaurants in New York City, many people who I had previously tried to introduce tothe spongy flatbread that forms a staple of Ethiopian food, found its sour aftertaste not to their liking. But Joe and I spent that night eating injera the proper way, scooping the vegetables onto it and licking the sauce off our fingers.
From an early age, most girls are taught to cook nshima, one of our other staple foods, which is made from cornmeal or maize that is boiled to form a porridge-like meal and served with stews and vegetables. My mother had taught me to cook nshima when I was a teenager, but my attempts always came out undercooked and lumpy. Eventually, I had given up on cooking Zambian meals all together, choosing instead to embrace American food when my family moved to New York in the early 2000s.
While many of the traditional reasons for hosting an Ichilanga Mulilo weren’t relevant to our modern relationship — for starters, Joe and I would be living separate from my family in New York — the ceremony was still a way for Joe to experience our foods. Ultimately, I made the decision to host it as a way to share my Bemba heritage with my partner.
The bride’s role during the Ichilanga Mulilo is to cook nshima, which is made from cornmeal and water and served with vegetables and a protein.After all the food for the Ichilanga Mulilo had been cooked, some of the women placed it in warmers and took it into the house. As drummers sang traditional songs, my instructor had me dish out the nshima from the large pot into smaller warmers. She then opened each warmer, explaining what each dish was.
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