The material presented in this paper focuses on one aspect of the rural-urban dynamic, namely the transfer of food from rural to urban households, and establishes the importance of these transfers in mitigating urban food insecurity within the context of limited formal and informal employment and high rural-urban migration. The data confirms that these transfers of food are not restricted to migrant households only, but rather that rural sources of food are also a central component of the urban food security equation for non-migrant households in Windhoek. The analysis also shows that gender influences access to rural food, and offers suggestions as to why this might be the case. In addition to the economic importance of these flows of food to urban households, the cultural significance of the types of food involved is examined.