Only one of this year’s new releases in print cookbooks covers the cooking of Africa, unless you count books about Moroccan cooking by Fatéma Hal and Z. Guinaudeau, as well as Kittee Berns’s Teff Love: Adventures in Vegan Ethiopian Cooking. The rest only come in Kindle editions, a medium which is not my first choice…
Tag: Africa
Peanuts and the Cooking of West Africa
Writers throw out the words “African cooking” all the time. I know. I have written same words, to my great embarrassment. But stop and think about something for a moment. The term “African cooking” is just as ridiculous as calling the cooking of Europe “European cooking,” lumping together the cuisine of France with that of…
Cassava, One Rugged World-Traveling Ingredient
Cassava, for me, remains the Sleeping Beauty of Latin American kitchens. I remember clearly the first time I ever ate cassava. I was sitting on a porch in a Paraguayan boarding house, torrential rain streaming hard off the thatched roof. I really didn’t know what I was doing there, on so many levels. Behind that wall of water, the cook – a…
Hoppin’ John, or Dashing Myths Galore
(Due to a foul up with WordPress and dates, this post appeared on December 30. I was not finished with it yet! But now I am!) Black-eyed peas, a gift to the New World from Africa. These beans were there as early as 1659 at St. Louis, now present-day Senegal, but they actually originated in North Africa, in…
Uncovering the Myths of the “Founding Mother” Cuisine: A Few Words About England, Africa, and a Bibliography
I’ll admit it, I spend a lot of time compiling bibliographies. For me, there’s something inherently satisfying about seeing a list of references all lined up, like bunches of beautiful flowers waiting to be picked. For my latest project – reflecting on the influence of English cooking on American cuisine, I’ve augmented a previous bibliography of cookbooks…
With Roots in Africa: Okra, a Veritable World Traveler
Yesterday, while driving across the vast expanse of South Carolina, I noticed dueling billboards, advertising Margaret Holmes canned goods and the Glory line of fresh chopped collards and Bruce’s Candied Yams. So I decided to repost this while I look more deeply into the foods eaten in Africa prior to the tragedy of the African…
Vivre en l’Outre-Mer, or, The Trials of Living in French Congo ca. 1923: Part III
Once settled into their bungalow overlooking Stanley Pool in Brazzaville, the Vassals faced the problem of hiring household help, especially a cook. Unlike many Europeans, they found a cook who knew his business, of whom Gabrielle wrote: I am glad, too, to have a change from German cooking.* Our primitive black Matamba is far superior…
The Smoke of Many Fires: A Meditation on Cooking Fires in Africa*
I still smell the smoke of many fires, its pungency hauling up memories, deep from that hidden place where forgotten things wait until the right atoms collide. With each of my slow short breaths, a picture of West Africa emerges, behind my eyes where I can see the past scrolling like a Technicolor movie. The…
Prometheus Unbound: New Evidence on Humans’ Early Use of Fire
I woke up this morning fully intending to end my two weeks of silence on this blog – due to familial obligations – with a preliminary examination of the role of ducks in French cuisine. But that alluring topic took a sudden backseat when I opened up my local newspaper and read, “Humans May have…
