ZIMBABWE: Mugabe complains of being food 'guinea pig'

He may favour simple foods, but Zimbabwe's ageing President Robert Mugabe does like them to be well cooked.


A video clip has emerged of the president complaining that his wife Grace changes her chefs so frequently at State House, that he feels like "a guinea pig".

"They learn how to cook on me," Mugabe says in Shona in quotes translated by the privately-owned Standard newspaper.

The long time leader, who is now 92, added: "Sometimes that food is so badly cooked you tend to wonder if that will be the food prepared for a president of the people."

It is not entirely clear when the video was taken. Website NewZimbabwe.com said it dated from a trip Mugabe made to Gutu, in southern Masvingo province, last week. But the Standard said the footage was taken at a private party thrown to celebrate Mugabe's wife's PhD in 2014. Grace Mugabe was given the doctorate by the University of Zimbabwe after a reported three months of study.

Last year, Mugabe said that he carefully watched what he ate, preferring white meat and fish to beef. "Eating well doesn't mean filling my stomach," he said during his official 91st birthday interview with the state-run ZBC broadcaster.


Grace Mugabe has previously boasted that she taught her two sons how to cook for the family.

The Zimbabwean president was in the meantime reported to be in Singapore this weekend on a "private visit", according to the ZBC.

Mugabe and his family regularly travel out of Zimbabwe to seek medical care.

The president's daughter Bona has just given birth, either in Dubai or Singapore. There is speculation Mugabe may have gone to pick up Bona, the new baby and his wife, though there is no confirmation of this.