To plan an African meal, consider a starch base, emphasize yams, cornmeal, and variety of greens. If palm and coconut oil do not appeal, use corn oil, but not olive oil.  Most of the ingredients are easily available in the UK.   Natural food stores now commonly stock millet, teff, stone ground white corn grits, and varieties of greens.  Hospitable, generous and filling, African dinners will be a welcome addition to a festive meal.

Nigeria and the coastal parts of West Africa are fond of chilies in food. Coastal recipes include fish marinated in ginger, tomatoes, and cayenne, cooked in peanut oil. French cooking influence in Senegal uses touches of lime juice, chopped vegetables including scallions, garlic, and marinades. Peanut oil, palm oil, and often coconut oils are common. The black eyed pea is a staple of West Africa. Okra, known also in the American South, is native to Africa; used in many dishes to thicken soups and stews. Tropical fruits, particularly the banana and coconut are important ingredients.

In the bush, one may find the most traditional African foods. The African village diet is often milk, curds and whey, (Ethiopia is justly known in the Bible as the land of milk and honey) and dishes of steamed or boiled green vegetables, peas, beans, and cereals. Starchy cassava, yams, and sweet potatoes round out a daily diet. The most unusual use is the local Baobab tree. This thick trunked tree looks somewhat in silhouette like an upside down carrot, growing wider at the base. Baobab seeds are dried, crushed and ground, and the flesh of the fruit is used in powder form to thicken sauces. In each locality there are numerous wild fruits and greens that are used in all manners of cooking. Yam feast days are common, often accompanied with eggs. West African cuisine makes croquettes of yams, fried in peanut oil. Along with the banana and plantain, the starchy vegetable form of banana, these comprise important elements of the diet.

Staple Ingredients List

Baobab
tree, fruit, juice, leaves, and seeds used

Berbere
red pepper spice paste used in Ethiopia

Cassava
a tuber which is the source for manioc and tapioca

Cola nut
flat seed from a West Africa native tree, flavoring for colas. Used in Africa to lessen thirst

Efo
multipurpose name for greens, including cassava, sorrel, mustard, collards, chard, and turnip

Elubo
yam flour

Foofoo
mashed yam, or yam, corn, and plantain pudding

Groundnuts
the African name for peanut, introduced by the Portuguese from Brazil

Gombo
the West African word for Okra, American derivative of any stew using okra is called a gumbo

Garden eggs
term for a small green skinned African eggplants

Gari
starch from the cassava. Used in Ghana, in porridge breads

Joloff rice
spicy chicken and rice

Mealie and Mealie meal
maize of American Indian corn, a drier type of field corn. Stone ground white cornmeal substitutes

Millet
grain bearing grass, a smaller version is called Teff

Niter Kibbeh
Ethiopian spiced butter oil. Clarified butter to which nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom seeds are added with turmeric for color, browned, strained and uses as seasoning and cooking oil in Ethiopia

Okra
native to Africa, pods are gelatinous, adding a thickening agent to soups and stews. available frozen throughout the year, fresh seasonally

Palm nut oil and butter
from the palm nuts in Ghana. Highly saturated

Plantain
a starchy banana, cooked like a root vegetable

Sorghum
cane like grass with a small cereal grain (similar to millet)

Yam
all purpose term for yellow-orange tubers.