African Cuisine

African cuisine, formerly not well known in the West, is growing in popularity as immigrants bring the dishes of their country to small family restaurants in the West. To a traveler, it would be impossible to categorize "African food" just as it would be impossible to state the cuisine of any continent by one name. If you are intrepid, and take a safari tour from Kenya, your culinary experience will be much different from eating at the French and British influenced restaurants of Johannesburg, tasting Doro Wat of Ethiopia, Portuguese inspired spices of Angola and Mozambique, or the coconut and fish stews of Nairobi. Yet, all are part of African cuisine.

The prime characteristic of native African meals is the use of starch as a focus; accompanied by a stew containing meat or vegetables, or both. Starch filler foods, similar to the rice cuisines of Asia, are a hallmark. Cassava and yams are main root vegetables. Steamed greens, mixtures of hot spices with root vegetables, stew with and without meat, particularly chicken, all are African inspired. Peanuts, called groundnuts in Africa, feature heavily in many dishes from a garnish to peanut soups. Melons, particularly watermelon, are popular.

African Cuisine influence on American South Dishes

What are ingredients for the traveler? African American cooking, with ingredients carried from the New World to Africa and back, gives us some clues. Mealie, the African name for corn, is used to make the soft cornmeal mush and batters that are a characteristic of African and American southern foods today. Fufu, brought to America by Nigerian slaves, is a stiff cornmeal or yam mush, directly related to southern spoonbreads and cornmeal. Porridges and ground millet, sorghum, teff, barley, and cassava flour make up the fritters, batters, flatbreads, griddle cakes, and grits known not only in the American South, but is part of the homemaker's repertoire in Africa.

Staples in African Cuisine
Yams, plantains, green bananas and cassava are the essential staples in Africa. These vegetables are grown and used all over the continent, either on their own or combined with others. Meat, on the other hand, is often used merely as one of a number of flavorings, rather than as a main ingredient in cooking. Vegetables, beans and lentils are definitely the most popular food staples throughout the continent, although animal products are used whenever available.

Food Production
Most food staples are produced on small scale, in a household based subsistence economy in Africa. The typical household grows its main staples, such as millet, sorghum and groundnuts in savannah areas, with more emphasis on rice were there is sufficient water available. One or more cash crops, in this example groundnut, are mostly produced for sale, while other crops are mostly for local consumption. Additionally, many households have small gardens with horticulture around their compounds, that is when water and means of fencing are available.

Horticulture may include vegetables such as plantains and onion and a variety of herbs and spices. These are consumed locally and sold on local markets.

Other major food stables, such as wheat and rice, are also imported on a wide scale from Asia, Europe and North America, especially in countries where the climate does not admit wide scale cultivation of such basic food staples.

 Ingredients in African Cooking
Historically, the African taste and use of ingredients has changed a great deal. Before intercontinental trade started at a wide scale, the most important vegetable food staples were rice, sorghum, millet, barley and lentils. In the eastern part of the continent (especially in Kenya) Arabs did start the cosmopolitan trend in local cuisine, sailing in their dried fruits, rice, spices and expanding the diets of the coastal cal gardeners. They also brought oranges, lemons and limes from China and India, as well as domestic pigs. The British were the next to influence eating and drinking habits, importing new breeds of sheep, goats and cattle, together with strawberries and asparagus. They also planted high-quality coffee.

In general European explorers and traders introduced several important food staples to the continent, after their first journeys to America and Asia. Important staples, which had been cultivated by the Indian cultures of the Americas, found their way to the "old continents". Beans, cassava, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes and sweet potatoes thus were introduced to Africa as a direct cause of the European exploring of the American continent. Asian seasonings like pepper, cinnamon, clove, curry and nutmeg were introduced as well.

Today the principal food crops in the western part of the continent are cereals; millet, sorghum, rice and maize. Root crops such as manioc, cocoyams, sweet potato and yams are also important locally. Perennial cash crops include both groundnuts and soybeans.