First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa has been hailed for helping society to appreciate the
importance of traditional foods, which have immense health benefits.
Dr Mnangagwa, who is also the countryʼs tourism ambassador, seeks to ensure the
emergence of a healthy citizenry countrywide through the cookout competition she
started and handed over to provinces. The cookout competitions have seen women
from all the countryʼs 10 provinces competing in showcasing their cooking skills
particularly traditional foods, which are now the in-thing owing to their health benefits.
The development has also opened prospects for culinary tourism where a nation
cashes in on its traditional foods through selling them to the outside world.
Last year, the national cookout competition was held in Victoria Falls and this year, they
are set for Chinhoyi, Mashonaland West Province.
Speaking during the Masvingo provincial cookout competition yesterday, Deputy
Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Barbara Rwodzi,
hailed the First Lady for introducing the cook-out competitions.
“This programme that was initiated by our First Lady is very important and I think
everyone here realises how important it is and some of the contestants here were even
openly saying it because they now know what is found in Zimuto in terms of traditional
foods.
“We also now know what is found in Masvingo so we want to thank Amai (First Lady) for
this well-thought programme,” said Deputy Minister Rwodzi.
She also underscored the importance of promoting traditional foods in developing
Zimbabweʼs culinary tourism industry, which has the potential to grow the economy
through job creation and forex earnings.
“These cookout competitions can also be looked at in the context of devolution
because we will be able to tell that in Masvingo, such traditional foods can be found
here and there, so that at the end of the day, we know what is available in Masvingo
and it is these things that we will bring together at the national (cookout) finals and say
these are the foods and drinks that are found in Zimbabwe.”
“So we want to really thank the First Lady for all this,” said Deputy Minister Rwodzi.
This yearʼs national cookout final competitions are expected to be graced by the First
Lady in Chinhoyi, in honour of Mashonaland West province which produced the winner
of last yearʼs competitions.
Sad Deputy Minister Rwodzi: “At the finals in Mashonaland West province, our
expectation is that Masvingo will come out tops because we will be holding the regional
(SADC) finals here at the home of the Great Zimbabwe because our patron, our mother
the First Lady, said letʼs go to Masvingo, the province that carries the history of our
nation.”
She said Masvingo has potential to be one of the countryʼs tourism hubs because of its
vast tourist attraction sites and friendly people, urging the province to take advantage
of the impending SADC regional finals to showcase the provinceʼs tourism products.
Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial A􀁸airs and Devolution, Ezra Chadzamira,
encouraged women to choose the natural when cooking, saying this has lots of health
benefits.
Minister Chadzamira thanked the First Lady for promoting traditional foods that were
key in fighting diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
There were 19 contestants at the cookout provincial finals in Masvingo, and Mrs Dzidzai
Chikumbo of Rhodene suburb, emerged victorious.
Each of the contestants received a food hamper from Deputy Minister Rwodzi. Herald

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