BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA SHEET

Amaranthus graeciaans, Amaranthus spinosus, Corchorus trilocularis, Corchorus
tridens, Momordica balsamina, Colocasia antiquorum, and Bidens pilosa. They
note that dietary quality can easily be maintained for protein values with a
balance between consumption of maize and complementary utilization of such
green leaves.
Zimbabwi (Southern Rhodesia) and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia)
These two nations, despite intense political controversy on each
side, share an important botanical, ethnographical, and nutritional history.
Richards (1939) conducted the first systematic field work on cultural nutrition
among the Bemba of modern Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia. Her research, the
foundation block of contemporary cultural nutrition, identified the important
nutritional and non-nutritional roles played by food, especially wild plants
(pp. 75-76, 103, 156, 232). Richards and Widdowson (1936), prior to publi­
cation of Richards classic text, identified more than thirty wild foods com­
monly consumed by the Bemba, two of the most important being Parinarium monola
and Uapaca kirkiana. More recently, Fanshawe and Mutimushi (1965) have pub­
lished on Bemba ethnobotany but did not stress edible wild foods.
Smith and Dale (1920, Vol. 2, pp. 135-153) worked among the Ila­
speaking peoples of northern Zambia and noted vernacular terms for forty-six
edible wild plants; two cereals, ten edible leaves or stalks, ten bulbs, roots,
or tubers, and twenty-four with edible berries, fruits, nuts, or seeds. Doke
(1931, pp. 99-109), writing on the Lamba of northern Zambia, also identified
local terms for eighty-four edible wild plants.
Several Tonga societies of Zambia/Zimbabwi have been subjects of
intensive cultural-botanical investigation. Colson (1959) identified the
basic elements of Plateau Tonga diet, including references to wild relishes
52.