African Food Recipes

This page has a summary explanation about African food recipes. The aim is to create a general picture of African cuisine considering political, cultural, religious and economical history as well as biotopes and other defining factors. At the bottom of this page will be links to specific countries. By clicking on each countries link at the bottom of the page you will be taken to a page with much more specific information and some family recipes submitted by visitors to this site. Bear in mind that this is a work in progress and that the site is new, at the time this is written I have no submitted African food recipes and hence no links to countries. Perhaps you would be willing to change this?

Different Biotopes
This huge continent has a great variation in biotopes. Deserts like the great Sahara in the north and the Kalahari in the south. There are several mountain ranges, like the Atlas in the northeast, and Drakenberg in the south. Highlands, jungles and savannahs are also covering big areas. The climate ranges from tropical to sub-arctic. In general the northern part of Africa, with the exception of the Nile valley, is dry. The southern part is more of a mix with savannahs, deserts, jungles and fertile plateaus. This has had a great influence of regional diets and cuisines.

Pre Colonization
It is widely believed that our earliest ancestors lived in Africa, from there they spread all over the world, constantly evolving. One of our earliest civilisations was the Egyptian that started in the Nile valley. They established a culinary tradition with recipes that live on even today. Check out my page Ancient Egyptian Food to read more about this The Egyptians expanded into the Middle East. After them came Greeks and Romans. The Islamic Arabs took over Egypt and adjoining areas in the 7th century, Islam kept spreading and still today the northern half of Africa is Muslim. In other parts of Africa civilisations manifested them selves later, around the 10th century you have some empires in sub-Saharan areas, like the Kanem-Bornu. Many small independent kingdoms were formed, mainly in West Africa. The Arabs and Indians were the first to start big scale trading of African commodities like spices, ivory and as mentioned below, slaves. The Arab and Indian influence is very visible in the cuisines from East Africa.

Slave Trade
Slaves was commonly used all over the world until the 19th century, perhaps on no other continent did it have more consequences than in Africa. In fact the slave trade is contributed to be the economic foundation for most of the sub-Saharan kingdoms. Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used black slaves, the trade oriented Arabs took it to another level. It is believed that they transported more than 15 million slaves out of Africa between the 7th and the 19th century. The discovery of the New World created a great demand for work force, between the 6th and the 19th century more than 10 million slaves are believed to have been sold to European slave traders. The abolition of slavery led to economic crises and the demise of many African states. Like always when countries trade with each other, traditions, ingredients and recipes were also traded.

Colonization
In the 19th century started a race for colonisation of the continent. Some mighty European countries wanted their share of the cake. Therefore did Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy and Portugal all put claim to areas - by the end of the 19th century only a few countries were independent. The effects of this is very much present to day in culture, language and food, quite large ethnic groups migrated to the new colonies. South Africa as an example received Dutch, English and Indian immigrants. African food recipes can only be understood if you have this in mind.

Post Colonization
After the Second World War the fight for independence started, many times in bloody coups the colonial powers were overthrown. Only when the apartheid government in South Africa lost its power in 1994 you could say that the colonisation era was over. In many countries the transition has not been an easy one. It was long a bloody arena in the Cold War, multi-international companies have exploited natural resources with questionable methods and corruption and personal interests have hampered national politics, the latter many times fuelled by racism between African tribes. Starvation, diseases, cruelty and poverty are today part of many Africans everyday life.

Understanding African Food Recipes
All the factors mentioned above are essential in understanding how the different cuisines in Africa have come to be. On South Africa you have influences from England and Indians mixing with the tribal ancestry. In West Africa a lot of the traditions from their old kingdoms are alive in their food, rice and starches like beans and sweet potatoes are common ingredients. Notable is how the South American cassava is common in West African recipes, a heritage from exchanges following the slave trade. On 'Africa’s Horn' and in East Africa spices and cooking methods are very similar to Middle Eastern cuisine, owing its explanation to the history of trade with the Arabs. In North Africa ancient Roman, Arab, Egyptian and Greek cuisines have mixed with different regional traditions to create quite distinct kitchens. And then we add biotopes, colonization, religious taboos, migration and modern economy... African food recipes are complex and have to be understood by discussing each country in detail.

Countries
Follow the links below to different countries. More detailed discussions about their cuisines and food history are on these pages, also African food recipes submitted by the visitors to this site.