African Food and Culture

Africa's natural beauty and fascinating complexity has drawn and mystified travelers, while her violence, corruption, and poverty have horrified. There is no simple way to describe the contrasts that are Africa. Perhaps more than many other peoples, Africans, as de Villiers and Hirtie have noted, are a "work in progress, in always-unfinished evolution." As such, only moments in that continuing movement to progress can be captured.

To most people of Africa, the ancient past is as immediate as this moment. Stories, myths, traditions, and rituals from the spirit world guide and inform every daily activity, every celebration, and every decision. Throughout their thousands of years of history, tribal struggles, migrations, violence, and times of peace have threaded through their daily lives, melding into new tribes and new regions, and embracing new conquests. Nothing old is really ever discarded.

Over the centuries, other countries have conquered, explored, and exploited this continent's natural resources and its human beings, who were regarded as pagans to be converted or as merchandise to be shipped as slaves to other parts of the world. And though, for the most part, this predominantly tropical and sub-tropical continent clings to deeply embedded cultural traditions of its own, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal have left traces of their influence. After centuries of disease and neglect, attempts are being made – by a new and burgeoning middle class – to blend old traditions and modem developments for the benefit of the entire land. But change does not come easily to any country or people. The newborn states of Africa are struggling with problems of political and economic chaos, tribal rivalries, famine, poverty, and lack of education.

From the 1500s to the 1700s, African blacks, mainly from the area of West Africa (today's Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahomey, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon) were shipped as slaves to North America, Brazil, and the West Indies. For them, local and tribal differences, and even varying cultural backgrounds, soon melded into one common concern for the suffering they all endured. Music, songs, and dances as well as remembered traditional food, helped not only to uplift them but also quite unintentionally added immeasurably to the culture around them. In the approximately 300 years that blacks have made their homes in North America, the West Indies, and Brazil, their highly honed art of the cuisine so treasured and carefully transmitted to their daughters has become part of the great culinary classics of these lands. But seldom are the African blacks given that recognition.

Of African origin are such specialities as gumbo and pralines, West Indian callaloo and duckandoo (a dish of greens and a dessert based on sweet potatoes), the Brazilian condiments dende oil and spicy hot sauces. Jamaica's bammy bread and the pan bread so beloved in the southern United States are both said to have their origin in the flat round cassava breads typical of Africa. Seeds and the plants of sesame, okra, some melons, and certain varieties of greens as well as yams, together with many techniques of bread making, and the use and combination of spices, are also all credited to the ingenuity of the African cook.

It could be argued that every nation and every ethnic group has its own soul food. But the contemporary connotation of the term "soul food" refers to the gradual blending and developing of a peculiar style of cookery with its own dictionary of food terms: it is a blend of West African cookery begun in the southern United States and now very much a part of the cultural tradition of African-Americans, binding them proudly to their African heritage. "Soul food" incorporates an economical and satisfying cuisine based on cereals, vegetables (greens and yams), pork and pork offal as well as chicken.

When speaking of Africa, it is very important to differentiate between urban and rural populations. Not only are the urban people in many areas still more or less influenced by European customs and manners, they are also a part of the growing middle class that is creating a new, independent African image, culture, and cuisine. Although this middle class is growing, the dominant concern lies with the three-quarters of the African population who are rural and tradition-bound.

Because of the lack of large mountain ranges, the climate of Africa is consistently hot except for the southern more temperate areas. Most of its people belong to a pastoral society where life revolves around the seasons, the crops, the villages, and the tribes. In most areas a subsistence economy predominates: the concern is for survival not profit. This outlook has pragmatic roots. Food is more important than money; cattle are often more important as a status symbol than as food; food spoilage from rodents, humidity, or insects is prevalent; transportation to distant markets for trade or profit is difficult and often impossible because of lack of roads or vehicles or both. In fact, Jacques May reports that "given better seed, he [the African farmer] will rejoice not because it will give him a better yield, but because he will get the same result from a smaller plot ..."

The problems encountered by those attempting to introduce scientific agrarian methods are further complicated by general poor soil, lack of storage facilities, lack of trained technicians or available parts for mechanical equipment, and finally, the problems of a burgeoning population that absorbs more and more land.

While Canadians and Americans of African descent are proudly relearning their heritage and establishing themselves as valued members of their communities, the peoples of their homeland are still engaged in the long and difficult process of easing themselves — together with their cherished traditions, myths and stories — into the twenty-first century. Unlike the past history of conquest and exploitation from external powers, the future seems to promise a concerned and committed world increasingly aware of the needs of the global community.