East/Central African cuisine?

[Smarmotron]

What is East/Central African cuisine like? I mean that part of Africa south of the sahara yet north of South Africa. I've never eaten anything I could call an 'African Dish' that wasn't Moroccan or otherwise from the North.

Any recipes?

[wgallois]

Hi Smarmotron. Good idea for a thread. For a long time I have been meaning to post details of a wonderful trip which I took to Sudan over Christmas and the New Year. I'm glad that your questions have pushed me into writing up some notes.

Flying into Khartoum, you get some idea of how much of the food is produced in the country, for after hundreds of miles of mountains and desert, you begin to criss-cross the Nile and its two to four hundred metre strips of agricultural production which abut the river. The quality of fruit and vegetables from this Nile-strip, available in Kahrtoum's markets, is fantastic, with the mangoes, tomatoes and spring onions sticking as particularly strong taste memories.

One of the distinctive marks of Sudanese cuisine is its use of peanuts, which are cultivated across the country. In Arabic the peanut is known as the 'foul Sudani' (Sudanese bean), and one of the interesting things about Sudanese cuisine is that it offers a combination of familiar dishes from the Arab world and unusual preparations such as those based on peanuts. Peanuts are served boiled, as a wonderful soup (I am looking for a recipe at present), and as a delicious salad:

1. Chop an onion into fine strings; 2. Cover with plenty of salt and leave this to be absorbed; 3. Squeeze the bitter juice from the onion; 4. Rinse when the onion is soft; 5. Add an equal amount of water and peanut butter (preferably reasonably smooth, and with no sugar); 6. Stir carefully with the juice of half a lemon, making sure to avoid curdling.

Sudan also has a wonderful range of dishes incorporating chillis. The following is for a dish called Mish, whose origins are I believe in Egypt. It is available in different forms of across the Arab world, but as this recipe comes from my wife's Sudanese family, I would like to think that this has a Sudanese twist:

1. Mix one tub of Greek yoghurt with a block of grated feta and four green chillis cut into large chunks (the chillis should be large and not overpowing in strength), along with one teaspoon of black onion seeds, fenugreek and chilli powder; 2. Store the mish in a jar in a refrigerator overnight, and serve with bread, toast or however you like; 3. Make mish again soon and often.

Other emblematic dishes in Sudan include different preparations of Molokhia (a soup or stew made with a very unusual-tasting greeen leaf - also available in Egypt), various Foul dishes (one of my wife's forebears went to Sudan selling foul to the Egyptian army), and some fantastic preparations of aubergines. The following aubergine salad is one I particularly enjoy:

1. Salt medium-sliced aubergines for one hour; 2. Rinse aubergines and pat dry; 3. Prepare a a bowl with a marinade of vinegar, garlic and chilli powder; 4. Fry auberines and dip into marinade and stack them in a nice white serving dish; 5. Pour remaining marinade over finished stack of aubergines, and serve cool.

If you ever have the chance to visit Sudan it is a wonderful country with incredibly welcoming people. There are all sorts of great food-sights as you drive around Khartoum, and wonderful smells of bread baking and other cooking. Almost all bread in Khartoum is of one kind (a soft, tasty bun) and I must say that there was something satisfying about enjoying the same bread which everyone else was eating across the city. Khartoum's first shopping mall is scheduled to open this year, so I suspect that what, perhaps naively, seemed to me to be 'democratic bread', will be supplemented by a wider range of breads for different sizes of pockets. We ate very, very well in my wife's aunt and uncle's house whilst in Sudan, and I will try to recall some other dishes later on this thread.

[edited to correct recipe and small details]

Edited April 22, 2003 by wgallois (log)

[Tonyfinch]

In Kenya the staple is Ugali, ground maize-polenta, basically-which is boiled and stirred until it becomes a thick porridge and then is shaped by the diner into a ball and used to mop up the meat or fish dish or what ever constitutes the stew.

Lots of maize is also eaten on the cob, not boiled with butter but roasted and sprinkled with chilli and lime. Roasted meat, mainly goat, is cooked at parties and gatherings on holidays and weekends.Groundnut oil and palm oil are the main cooking mediums.

In parts of East Africa Indians were bought over to build the railroads. They were kicked out of Uganda in the seventies but they remain in Kenya and Tanzania and Indian food is very popular throughout the region.

[jhlurie]

One of the distinctive marks of Sudanese cuisine is its use of peanuts, which are cultivated across the country. In Arabic the peanut is known as the 'foul Sudani' (Sudanese bean), and one of the interesting things about Sudanese cuisine is that it offers a combination of familiar dishes from the Arab world and unusual preparations such as those based on peanuts.

Has the rather unexplainable genetic tendency towards peanut allergies hit this part of the world, or is that only a western thing?

Aren't Peanuts a "New World" item originally? Do we know how and when this item made its way to Sudan?

[wgallois]

It seems the peanut originates in South America and then found its way to Africa with the Portugese, and thence to North America (if you believe the internet!):

http://www.afrol.com/archive/groundnuts_gambia.htm

http://www.texomapeanut.com/inn/peanut%20history.htm

[Tonyfinch]

I forgot to mention Cassava(Mogo in Swahili) a hugely popular staple throughout the region. Coconut and sugar cane are also ubiquitous.

[jhlurie]

Well, the closest I've had to any of this is Ethiopian, which has been real big in the Adams Morgan area of Washington, DC for about the past 15-20 years.

Lots of ground meat, fairly well spiced--both raw and cooked. Eaten with your hands, wrapped around a soft flatbread called "injera". In some places I understand the "tablecloth" which everything rests on is actually made from this bread and you rip it up and use it as the meal progresses.

[skchai]

What is East/Central African cuisine like?  I mean that part of  Africa south of the sahara yet north of South Africa.  I've never eaten anything I could call an 'African Dish' that wasn't Moroccan or otherwise from the North.

Any recipes?

Subsaharan Africa has quite a rich cuisine, though that of West and South Africa is generally seen as more varied than that of East and Central Africa.

There is actually a great deal of culinary interchange between subsaharan countries, but one thing that makes tracking the origins of dishes difficult is the bewildering variety of languages and hence varying terms for similar

dishes. For instance, what is called ugali in Kenya is called mealie meal porridge in South Africa, Kenkay in Ghana, Nsima in Zambia, etc.

If any generalizations can be made, they are that West African cuisine is characterized by the use of "the ingredients", i.e. sauted onion, tomato, chilis, and palm oil, as well as, as mentioned already in this thread, peanuts. East African cuisine is heavily influenced by Arab and South Asian cuisines. South Africa is of course heavily influenced by Dutch cuisine, but also by that of South Asia and the East Indies (particularly in the Cape).

There does seem to be a fairly pan-subsaharan liking for sticky stews eaten with pounded starchy tubers (e.g. foofoo).

[Tonyfinch]

There does seem to be a fairly pan-subsaharan liking for sticky stews eaten with pounded starchy tubers (e.g. foofoo).

In Ethiopia and surrounds the basis for these stews are known as "wots"-onions,garlic,chillies,herbs tomatoes (sometimes),spices and butter/oil sauteed slowly until they become dark and rich before the main ingredient is added. Also in Ethiopia a spongy bread called Injera (various spellings), often made with a slightly fermented sourdough, is as common a staple as maize

[lueid813]

What is East/Central African cuisine like?  I mean that part of  Africa south of the sahara yet north of South Africa.  I've never eaten anything I could call an 'African Dish' that wasn't Moroccan or otherwise from the North.

Any recipes?

I think you are quite right when you say that Moroccan and North African dishes constitute a very large portion of what is known as "African" cuisine. South African, with its mix of Asian and European culinary influences, is the up and coming cuisine of Africa. Even West African cuisine (e.g., Senegalese) is somewhat well known, but the vast middle of the continent, the area around the equator, is still quite an unknown.

Of course, it's hard to generalize about so large an area, with many different types of geography and different ethnic populations. Still, there are some general observations.

The staple foods in the central part of Africa are cassava (also known as manioc), corn (maize), plantain bananas, and yams. All of these are boiled and pounded into a porridge-like cereal called Fufu (and known by many other names, see www.congocookbook.com/c0170.html. Before the arrival of cassava and corn (from America), and plantains (from Asia), indigenous cereal grains were more commonly used.

These staples are always served with a sauce or stew that might be made with chicken, fish, or meat, depending on what is available. Commonly used vegetables include eggplant (aubergine), okra, and many varieties of greens. Hot chile peppers are a common seasoning in many areas. Depending on scarcity, meat or fish may be more of a flavoring than a main ingredient.

Bushmeat (wild game) is used in many parts of Africa and is a valuable commodity that is traded in cities and even exported from Africa (albeit perhaps not legally). Of course there are different traditions among various ethnic groups, but almost every living thing imaginable -- birds, fish, insects, mammals (including monkeys and apes), and snakes -- end up in cooking pots in one part of Africa or other.

The previous post mentioned peanuts in Sudan. Peanuts are also very much used in Central Africa too. (As has been mentioned, peanuts came from America, but were quickly adopted by Africans soon after the era of the Columbian Exchange, see www.congocookbook.com/c0175.html). Unlike in America, peanuts are mostly used in sauces and stews, to thicken and add protein.

Of course, in urban areas, local cuisines have been much influenced by colonial European cuisines (British, French, Portuguese, even German). The North and East parts of Africa are much influenced by Arab cuisine, which has permiated towards the center of the continent. And there are large Indian communities in East Africa and Southern Africa.

That's a start.

Edited March 26, 2004 by lueid813 (log)

[DianaBuja]

Posted by: Smarmotron on Apr 20 2003, 10:03 PM

What is East/Central African cuisine like? I mean that part of Africa south of the sahara yet north of South Africa. I've never eaten anything I could call an 'African Dish' that wasn't Moroccan or otherwise from the North.

Any recipes?

Well, as I’m located here in Burundi [along Lake Tanganyika, central Africa], let me oblige with some information and recipes.

First, here’s a page on our project website where I’ve put up various recipes - most of the recipes are accompanied by photos of the dish being prepared here:

A "Taste" of Africa & the Middle East

http://burundigoats.tripod.com/Taste_of_Af..._of_africa.html

Recipes include the following:

• Sautéed Ndagala (Whitebait) in Tomato Sauce (Burundi)

• Green Mealie Bread (Botswana, Southern Africa)

• Bushmeat, Black-eyed Peas, Greens & Pili-Pili Ho-Ho (Nigeria)

• Yogurt-making in the Tropics (Burundi)

• Some Yogurt-based Recipes (Egypt)

o Lebna (Yogurt Cheese)

o Labnah Makhbus: (Yogurt Cheese Balls in Olive Oil)

o Labnah Ta'amiyyah (Spiced/Fried Yogurt Balls)

o Zabaadi Bil-Tahini (Yogurt & tahini/sesame paste) sauce/dip

• Sosaties - Sweet & Sour Kebabs (South Africa)

• Sombe - Manioc Leaves & Goat Meat in a Hot Sauce (Burundi; Rwanda' Eastern Congo)

Here is a page on cheese production in the Tropics - lots of pictures:

Notes on Dairy Goats and Artisan Cheese Production in Central Africa

http://burundigoats.tripod.com/Tropical_Em...y___cheese.html

AND, just in case you might be wondering what *goat* cuisine consists of, hereabouts, see the following, also with lots of pictures:

Why Do Goats Prefer Browse Over Grasses?

http://burundigoats.tripod.com/Tropical_Em...fer_browse.html

Ecosystems for goats defined: different eco-climatic zones for different animals

http://burundigoats.tripod.com/Tropical_Em.../evolution.html

But seriously, the ecosystem-cuisine interface is key also for human-folk; it’s only in the last decades that technology has overcome this constraint, thereby allowing foods to be processed and transported over long distances. It’s all too easy to forget this important fact, when thinking and talking and writing about ‘regional’ or ‘ethnic’ cuisines. We’re all - originally - a bit like the goats: historically, our cuisines reflected the ecosystems in which they were developed.

More recipes in another post.

[viva]

From recent safari in Kenya & Tanzania…

Most of our camp food was basic fare (fried fish, chops, pasta, salad, etc) designed to be non-objectionable to pretty much any western palate on safari, but we asked Alloise, our Kenyan (Kamba tribe) camp cook, to do a traditional meal for us one night. Alloise learned to cook from his mother who ran a restaurant kitchen in Kenya, and says his best recipes are hers. Here's Alloise in action (frying up some chops).

Here's our traditional meal. Everything is eaten with your hands. Nola and Nikki have ugali on their plates (the white heap) which is used as described in posts above to mold into a spoonish shape to dip into the stews. From the top, we've got...my favorite “irio” or “mukimo” which was a mashed stew of corn, potatoes, peas, and ghee (Alloise insisted that ghee was the secret to success in making irio). Next was “karanga”, a beef stew with potatoes, and at the bottom of the picture is “mboga”, a stewed mix of cabbage, carrots, and potatoes (I think “mboga” is a generic term for mixed vegetables). Alloise also made some chapatis for us, just in case the ugali was not that popular (it wasn’t). He also served up some banana fritters at the end that were gone too quickly to take photos of.

Also had road food at a local lunch shack of nyama choma (generic word for roasted meat which in this case was goat), along with ugali. Very plain but filling. No picture but envision cubes o’ goat in one tupperware, and a heap of ugali in the other.

On the other hand, there are the Maasai who traditionally eat a yogurt made from the blood of their cattle mixed with milk and stored for the day in a dried calabash (shown below). I did not try this (to be fair, I wasn’t offered any – I might have tried it but I wasn’t exactly going to actively seek it out).

Also stopped for banana beer in Mto Wa Mbu made from fermented green bananas and millet. Banana beer is called a “social beer” where 5-6 people may be drinking from one cup, and 100-500L of banana beer may be included in the dowry paid for a bride (to be consumed at the wedding party). This man (from the Chaga tribe) is stirring the banana mush.

Chupaju!

[SanaaSol]

What great pictures Viva!

I'm interested in African cuisine, especially western and central. Still learning right now, though...

So far these are the ingredients I keep running into, I'm sure there's more:

plantain

cassava/yucca

dried shrimp

breadfruit

bell peppers

garlic

dried / smoked fish

cornmeal

red palm oil / butter

cowpeas / black-eyed peas

pigeon peas

greens like spinach, amaranth, etc...

tomatoes

onions

thyme

rice

curry powder

cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon

hot chilies & powder

peanuts / groundnuts

pumpkin / gourd seeds

peppercorns

benne / sesame seeds

fresh shrimp, crayfish

periwinkles

goatmeat

bushmeat

chicken

Edited March 11, 2008 by SanaaSol (log)

[helenjp]

So what is the ugali in the photo made of?

sticky stews eaten with pounded starchy tubers (e.g. foofoo)

That's what I heard, from friends who lived in Mali/Chad or further west, and from a fascinating book I read ages ago about the relations between the coastal and the inland peoples in the west subsahaharan area. The whole area sounds so complex, and I'd love to know more.

My sister's geothermal class included a fair number of east African students, and that was the first time I realized how much closer their food was to Asia.

There seem to be quite a few legumes of the cowpea family which are used in a limited way even in Japan, but I'd love to know how they are used in Africa.

[v. gautam]

Helen,

I had the good fortune of sharing a house with several Africans from Nigeria [ibo] and Ghana, both men and women and excellent cooks. My teacher was a well-known Africanist specializing in Senegal and at that time I myself was encouraged to research the agricultural development and economic history of Rwanda-Burundi and the Mozambique floodplains. So, the cooking of the Ibo country, and occasionally, Senegal, was a familiar smell and taste in our kitchens, and the academic and practical merged into a wonderful whole.

To the [mature] cowpeas you mention, another 2 elements areadded to complete a very important food of the western coast [the bulge] that includes the Ibo country, the Cameroon coast [camaroes =prawn in Portugues], Ivory Coast etc. Cowpea fritters : mashed dried soaked cowpea containing dried or fresh shrimp, fried in palm oil.

This important food has been transferred to Brazil, especially to Bahia province, in this exact form. Elsewhere, it has been modified in various ways, often to include bacalao, as in the Caribbean. People may argue that this is an Iberian influence, but there is a strong African component at work here as well.

The most disconcerting element is the enormous significance of dried cod or stockfish, not salt cod, in the cooking of this part of west coastal Africa. It supplanted an enormous native tradition of dried and smoked marine life, as well as freshwater fishes and land snails. These last are still one of the defining flavor-givers in inland Senegalese stews as opposed to coastal ones, but even the reknowned coastal fish dish that i can pronounce but not spell correctly [owing to the idiosyncracies of French phonetics and orthography] depends on the smoke-dried Giant African Snail for its particular body.

Today, Nigeria ranks among one of the largest importers of "stockfish" from the Scandinavian countries. At least 22 grades are recognized, and many types of northern whitefish today take the place of cod, and heads and frames nowadays have to suffice for the poorer people. This is a sad development, as traditionally, more than 500 species of freshwater fish alone were available to the African cook both as flavoring and food, smoke-dried. Smoke-drying is a process of drying bush meat and fish over a very low wood fire that at the same time supplies a modest amount of smoke for preservation.

The great traditional religious center at Ife, now in Nigeria, had a whole class of foods prepared in particular ways, by women "priests" [not the correct term] of deities. For example, okra, an African vegetable, was sliced paper thin, to eaxcerbate their mucialginous texture, and only for this specialized ritual food offering. However, okra, sliced thin to thicken stews is very much a desirable element in many Ibo dishes, that may also include egusi, a special type of watermelon grown for its seed kernels, used as thickeners, like a nut paste.

In the humid forest region, before the tapioca was introduced from South America, various species of Dioscorea, the true yams, were [and are] the favored staple starch, followed by Colocasia [an Asian introduction] and Xanthosoma [a similar plant, whose leaves are tastier than its corms]. We see this reflected in the West Indian "calalloo" made precisely from taro or Xanthosoma leaves, and this is a typical food directly transferred from its West African home.

African Rice, Oryza glaberrima, is another prized but more localized food that is rapidly disappearing with the introduction of Asian rice. While cultivated in vast paddies since ancient times, its shattering characteristic has not been bred out unlike most domesticated foodgrains, and this has restricted its spread .

Anyway, I was taught some "authentic" Ibo dishes, one of which apparently could be duplicated in the US by combining equal parts of American chili powder [as in McCormick's , for tex-mex Chili] and McCormick's or Frontier Spice American style Indian curry powder in a 50:50 mixture. Don't ask! The results are very pleasing, though, if you would care for the recipe.

[helenjp]

That was fascinating, thank you!

Dried fish...one of the world's great resources. It's a pity that so many freshwater fish species are quickly overlooked when other food sources become available - the same is true in Japan.

Taro (colocasia spp.) leaves are traditionally eaten in Japan - and right through the Pacific. I've often wondered if "slimy" starches are particularly valued as food in hot climates, because they are so good at holding water.

O. glaberrima is African rice! I only knew that it was used for some genetic experiments - how different are the cooking characteristics from O. sativa?

I'd love to see your Ibo recipes, though I doubt if I could buy either of the spice blends you mention!

[v. gautam]

Regarding Africa's inland fisheries, as with its indigenous rice, & many of its native food and forage species including the ancient and vital dioscoreas e.g guineensis, all have suffered a disturbing degree of displacement: by alien species, and by elements out of place.

For examples, the East African lake regions harbored some of the richest diversity of cichlid fishes ( e.g. Tilapia and its relatives), more than 500 species alone of this family in the great lakes of that region. In a hasty and poorly-conceived plan to "improve" fisheries, the voracious Nile perch was introduced, wiping out this extraordinary global resource.

[strangely, an African catfish, removed from its natural habitat and evolutionary checks and balances, today has become a major destructive force in Bangladesh, similar to the Nile Perch, threatening to wipe out a great number of native species there! Some wicked people, bent on quick profit, also have released piranha species in heavily frequented water bodies of Bangladesh!]

The Ibo and Tropical West African dishes share an underlying method of cooking:

A chicken, preferaby a free-range, somewhat mature fowl, is simmered with some onions and a bit of stockfish until nearly cooked. If one is using tender fowl, one would need to adjustt he timing so that the flesh does not turn too soft and fall apart. You may joint the bird to your taste. Meat on the bone is used, but in japan, boneless thighs may be preferred? Some giblets [hearts, gizzard] necks and backs could also be added, if you like.

The meat is fished out with a strainer and set aside. The stockfish should be gently flaked into the broth; there would not have been allthat much to begin with; sometimes, only the frames and heads of the dry fish are used.

Diced onions and some aromatic green peppers [not hot; perhaps you could use shishitou? poblanos + bell peppers] are sauteed/sweated in vegetable oil, the chicken pieces added back and stirred around for a bit to take up some of the flavor and dry up the moisture and then the broth is gradually added back in and brought to a simmer.

Now you add the staff of life for all of West Africa: the standard green stew that at home includes a huge variety of greens and leaves that vary by locality: baobab, Cleome, Solanum aethiopicum, Solanum nigrum, and so many, many more.

We shall merely add chopped spinach or young chard. You could add young kabocha leaves or lagenaria leaves sliced fine. In addition, Agaricus mushrooms, the ordinary sort, sliced or quartered, go in and make a pleasing textural contrast. In Japan, you have many more interesting fungi to use: oyster mushrooms and such. I have not forgotten salt, knowing I need not remind a Japanese of that staple of life!!!

Then comes a choice: very thinly sliced fresh okra [Do you recognize the ancestors of Cajun cooking, right down to the combination of meat and fish?] so they can release their mucilage and thicken the stew.

Or, you could grind de-hulled pepitas/pumpkin seeds, very lightly toasted, into a powder and incorporate this into the stew as a thickener. Either the okra or the pepita. You are done.

The same pattern from Ghana: chicken gizzards and hearts in a flavored broth. Separate dry and wet, slice meat into convenient pieces. Sautee onions, add meat. Return broth. Add blanched/drained/squeezed [ohitashi style], very finely chopped turnip and mustard greens [or your choice], let simmer until tender and done enough for your taste, thicken a bit with pepita powder.

Eat all three [see below] with rice, or ersatz fufu made of instant potato flakes and semolina stirred into boiling water: this is probably student cooking!!!

You can certainly make the Ibo curyy/chili thingy because this is the basis of that famous pan West African dish Jollof Rice. You can substitute Madras curry powder, Vietnamese curry powder, or Japanese curry blocks with ease. Tex-Mex chili powder is Ancho + New Mexico chiles chile de-seeded, cumin seed, both very lightly toasted, and ground in a coffee blender dedicated to spice grinding, garlic powder, Mexican oregano or ordinary oregano, a bit of black pepper.

So, the procedure is the same: chicken in stockfish broth. Separate wet & dry. Saute diced onion and green pepper. add chicken, shift to one side, add curry powder, Mex chile powder, so that they have a chance to cook a bit in the pan without scorching. If using japanese curry block, not to worry about this step, just use cumin powder and some Korean kochukaru powder, and a bit of oregano and a bit of garlic powder: that would be your chili substitute. So the chicken will smell nice, add a bit of tomato puree or crushed tomato, canned, fresh, whatever; stir for a bit. Add the broth back.

For the Ibo stew, you add the greens, i.e. spinach, mushrooms, okra. Serve over rice, fufu, couscous or mashed potatoes. Season to taste.

For the Jollof rice, you are circumspect with the broth and par-cook rice, long grain or to your taste, maybe even sauteed in oil and aprt-cooked in scant water. Then the chiken and gravy [no vegetables or thickener here] is added to the rice, covered, and baked or cooked on "dum" [to use an Indian term] until the rice has absorbed all the goodness and is exactly right. So this pilaf is the famous Jollof Rice.

[helenjp]

You are right, this dish sounds "almost familiar". I will definitely try it.

Solanum nigrum

- the leaves are not toxic? I ate the berries when I was a kid, thoughtfully sharing them round the family so as to cause my poor mother to panic in a way never to be repeated...until a few years later, when I talked a friend into sampling arum lily with me .

However, if S. nigrum leaves are edible, I know of plenty of wild plants growing nearby.

Cleome...how do the leaves of the garden varieties like hassleriana compare with varieties such as C. monophylla? Can you eat them? (Thinking of a few neighbors' flower gardens... ).

Lagenaria - in Japan, it's mostly ornamental, though I've heard you can eat the shoots - but have not eaten the leaves. Too early in the year to try that yet, though.

By the way, do you know whether Malabar spinach used in western Africa, or only on the east coast? That's one plant I grow every year.

[v. gautam]

Agriculture in our sense of the term is thought to have evolved from the West African [ here we are confining ourselves generally to the SubSaharan civilizations] forest belt and moved east along with its progenitors as they gradually intermingled with the the East African cultures.

The coastal areas of the east may have had incidental contacts with both the Indian and Malesian agricultural civilizations for a long time. The immigration fro the Indonesian archipelago into the Malagasy islands and southern Africa was ancient. Etymological traces like "poopA' for flour =Sanskrit ApUpa in eastern Africa, certain palm tapping processes and the like point to early contacts that need to be studied for their agricultural exchange: many major ancient food crops in India, millets, sesame [sudan], citrullus, tamarind, jute [yes, a major food initially, greens!!] etc. had African origins, and not necessarily via a land bridge.

I am sorry I cannot answer your glaberrrima question having no personal knowledge, but would recommend to you two volumes made available online through the efforts of the US National Academy of Science: Lost Crops of Africa

Part I: Grains; Part II: Vegetables; Part III : Fruit [in production]

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/dsc/crop...eport_brief.pdf

In passing, let me say that our much maligned US government has undertaken to research and publish a great body of agricultural/horticultural/livestock science : exceptional works of enormous value in this national Academy of Science series, and made them available free of cost online. The effort and value of this initial work and organization is immense. Sadly, all the other "civilized" nations, wealthier and apparently wiser that take such joy in denigrating the USA in so many ways have never thought to build upon the fantastic work initiated by America, and crucial to very poor societies and subsistence farmers. It is time they stepped up to the batter's mound!! Sorry to be such a curmudgeon. You will see how wonderful these books are!

Returning to the nightshades and the many types of bitter nad slightly toxic leaves, e.g. Cleome, our garden Spider Plant, consumed in Africa, first, I would not advise anyone to duplicate these practices. Plants and cultural practices, preparations for cooking, vary greatly from place to place and modulate edibility/toxicity.

Additionally, many cultures in Africa are noted for GEOPHAGY, the consumption of specific types of soil or clay minerals concurrently with their favorite greens. Adsorption of plant toxins may be at least one reason behind this.

One interesting African solanum that actually has donated its genes to some early American eggplant breeding, Dr. Meader at the University of New Hampshire, a cold land, successfully utilizing Solanum aethiopicum genes in his early-maturing and famous eggplant Applegrreen

African eggplants have descended from a common ancestor and may be used for fruit or their huge leaves. You can grow them in many parts of Japan, and seeds may be had for free from the AVRDC, TAIWAN [see below].

http://www.actahort.org/books/752/752_96.htm

http://www.actahort.org/books/752/752_51.htm

AFRICAN EGGPLANT - FROM UNDERUTILIZED TO A COMMERCIALLY PROFITABLE VENTURE

Authors: M.L. Chadha, H. Hasan Mndiga

EVALUATION OF AFRICAN EGGPLANT FOR YIELD AND QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS

Authors: M.O. Oluoch, M.L. Chadha

African eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum L.) was domesticated from the wild species Solanum anguivi Lam. Both species are found throughout the tropical Africa. The immature fruits of S. aethiopicum are used as vegetable in stews, and sometimes eaten raw. The leaves and shoots picked from the same plants or from leafy cultivars are also used for cooking. Fruits of bitter cultivars are used as medicine in many African countries. Small-scale growers account for at least 80% of the total production. Leaves of S. aethiopicum are especially important in Southeastern Nigeria, Cameroon and Uganda and it’s the most popular vegetable in Kampala market.

Combined mean data for species comparison showed that S. aethiopicum lines gave significantly higher fruit yields (47.4 t/ha) than other species tested while S. anguivi lines gave significantly higher seed yields (1512 kg/ha). S. macrocarpon lines showed the lowest mean fruit and seed yields when compared to the other species.

lines AB2, NA, N15, Manyire Green, OAA(089)N18, Heart shape, and N24 giving mean fruit yields of over 57 t/ha.

The Total Soluble Solids (TSS) content among selected lines varied from 4 to 12 with lines Tengeru white, Ex-Dar and DB3 giving TSS contents of over 10.

promising lines of African eggplant like Tengeru White, DB3, AB2, Manyire Green

Most of the farmers interviewed in Manyire village located in the Arumeru district of Tanzania revealed that they are growing variety Tengeru White because of its high yield and good demand in the markets.

Until recently, Dr. Madan Lal Chadha was the Director, AVRDC-RCA [Regional Center for Africa] Arusha, Tanzania. He was a source for the seeds, distributed freely on request. He now has been transferred to India. His replacement is not known to me, but whoever today is in charge of seed distribution at Arusha may be discovered by contacting:

Ms Lilia Tan- Habacon, Human Resources Manager,

AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center, P.O. Box 42, Shanhua, Tainan 74199, Taiwan; e-mail: lilia.tanhabacon@netra.avrdc.org.tw

Re: lagenaria, is this the same gourd that is dried for sushi? The young leaves and shoot tips of this as well as similar parts of kabocha are very much enjoyed in India, and surprisingly, by Sicilians, including those in the USA. In India [bengal], these are cooked with small chunks of eggplant, kabocha, potato or taro, lightly sauteed shrimp or just shrimp heads, and finished with a mustard paste and a few drops of mustard oil and whole hot green thai peppers added for their aroma.

[TeakettleSlim]

I spent 2 months in Tanzania in 2003 learning Swahili. A couple of foods that I encountered that I don't see mentioned here (and that I occasionally have an unrequited craving for) are maandazi (little doughnuts, about the size of hushpuppies, but a little bit sweet), chips mayai (french fries with an egg fried over the top, to be eaten with pilipili sauce), and maharagwe (red beans, usually cooked in coconut milk). Fried plantians with pilipili sauce. I could do the fried plantains here at home, but it's not the same without the Tanzanian chili sauce.

One thing I would love to learn more about are the local adaptations of Indian food in the coastal areas, esp. ner Zanzibar. There's long been a large population of people of Indian descent living in East Africa-- in Dar Es Salaam I had some of the best Indian food I've had in my life. Surely some local variations and specialties have emerged over the centuries. I know there's a variant of chapati that has made its way into local, non-Indian cuisine. I'm not sure, not being a chapati expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the way the dough is formed is different. After kneading the dough, they make a hole in the ceneter and gradually elongate it into a very long rope/doughnut. Then this is laid down, rolled up into a spiral, and rolled out flat before frying. It causes a distinctive tearing pattern in the finished bread.

And there were so many street food vendors whose wares I didn't get to sample. One thing I tried that I'd like to have identified was something we got at an Indian-run grocery in Dar es Salaam. There was a leaf (3-4 inches long, iirc), and a number of things to spread on the leaf. The guy layered them all on, then rolled it up. I got a bite of a friend's-- it was very aromatic. There was definitely some aniseed in there, but other than that, I have no idea. Anyone know what that was?

[Chris Amirault]

I wish I could help out with your questions, TeakettleSlim, but I'm afraid I can't. But I have a question about something you wrote:

chips mayai (french fries with an egg fried over the top, to be eaten with pilipili sauce)

Can you say more about this? How are the chips prepared? Sounds fantastic....

[andiesenji]

I bought Dorinda Haffner's cookbook, "A Taste of Africa" back in '94 when it was first published and prepared many of the recipes.

She had been interviewed at length on a local PBS station and demonstrated some of her favorite dishes and I was hooked.

Here's a link to the newer 2002 edition.

The original is available from ABE books.

I also have another shown on that Amazon page, "The Africa News Cookbook"

I got it prior to the "Taste" cookbook.

It has some useful tips in that it include substitutes for some of the more exotic ingredients that may be difficult to find in the US.

I have at least two other African cookbooks, one is entirely vegetarian, but I don't recall the titles right now.

I also have one I ordered from the UK. "Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook," based on the character in Alexander McCall Smith's series about a female private detective in Botswana.

The recipes are just a part of the book that includes history, snippets of funny stories and other errata. Fun to read.

Most recipes are essentially of southern African origin but not South African, per se. It's a fun cookbook.

[TeakettleSlim]

Chris, the fries are just deep fried, and the egg broken over the top right in the fryer before they're pulled out. You end up with a nice tangle of greasy fries/egg.

Andie, I didn't know there was going to be a Mma Ramotswe cookbook! I love McCall-Smith...something to add to my Christmas list!