AFRICA AFRICAN foods

The smile that showcase at the perceiving of the aromas and smells from the backsides of houses , is something palatable and mind sweeping,  to various races its take various action and memories and even attached to how they feel and react to the percived smells.

In Africa, African houses backside (kitchen) is designed in various shape and sizes with a bouncing traces of traditions.

Traditionally, the various outputs are formally called, cuisines of Africa . This cuisine usually use  combinations of locally available fruits, cereal grains and vegetables, as well as milk and meat products, and do not usually get food important purposefully as food to eat and as medicine food to cure certain human medical issues. 

In some parts of the continent, the traditional diet features a lot of milk, curd and whey products.

Depending on the region, there are also sometimes quite significant differences in the eating and drinking habits and proclivities throughout the continent's vast populations:

Central Africa, East Africa, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa each have their own distinctive dishes, preparation techniques, and consumption is determined by the compositions that its made off and the availability of the components to their domestic markets. 

African cuisine is as diverse as the hundreds of different cultures and groups that inhabit the continent. This diversity is reflected in the many local culinary traditions in terms of choice of ingredients, style of preparation and cooking techniques. 

Many of the dishes are also affected by the subsistence nature of living in many parts of the continent – you find farmers, herdsmen and fishermen everywhere. The crops they grow or the animals they keep thus affect the popular dishes in their regions.

The dishes have also been influenced by foreign visitors and invaders. The food of North Africa has been heavily influence by the Phoenicians of the 1st century who brought sausages, followed by the Carthaginians who introduced wheat, then the nomadic Berbers adapted the semolina from wheat into couscous – a main staple diet in the region. From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs introduced a variety of spices, like saffron, cinnamon, ginger and cloves and, from the New World, they got chillies, tomatoes and potatoes.

In East Africa the Arab influence on cuisine is evident. Settling on the coast over 1,000 years ago, the Arabs sailed in with rice and spices, particularly noticeable in the Swahili foods of the coastal regions. They also brought lemons, oranges and domestic pigs from China and India. Next came the British Empire and with it Indian workers who brought their foods with them, such as spiced vegetable curries, lentil soups, chapattis and pickles. The British themselves also influence food by bringing in new breeds of sheep, cattle and goats along with high-quality coffee.

As we go more inland, even though cattle, sheep and goats are widespread in eastern Africa, they are often regarded as a form of currency and a store of wealth by pastoralists. So while they may be used for dairy products, they are not often used for their meat. Many people in the eastern region therefore rely heavily on mainly on grains, beans and vegetables, with fish providing protein in lake and river regions.  One of the most widespread staples in eastern Africa, and in southern Africa too, is ground maize. Maize flour is cooked with water to form a stiff porridge or dough - calledugali or nsima  depending where you are.

It may be neighbouring East Africa but the food in the Horn of Africa is very different. Here the Islamic and Christian faiths have greatly impacted the food. There is no pork for starters, and as for Coptic Christians they adapted to the meat-free fast days with an increased use of pulses, lentils and chickpeas. The main traditional dishes in Ethiopian  and Eritrean cuisine are very similar and both are dominated by tsebhis(stews) served with injera - a flatbread made from teff, wheat, or sorghum, also found in Somalia. In Somalia an interesting addition to their cuisine is pasta, which arrived with the Italians in the 1880s, and sweet dishes that came with the Arabs and Yemenis.

Just before the British and the Indians, the Portuguese came to Africa and introduced techniques of roasting and marinating. This is evident in East Africa with the nyama choma (roast meat) culture, but also in Southern Africa.

Southern Africa has the most varied cuisines of any region on the continent, this is a result of the blend of cultures – the indigenous African tribal societies, European and Asian populations. Most of the African ethnic communities have diets that include meat and milk, some vegetables and grains. The Portuguese influence saw the introduction of piri-piri (chilli seasoning) into the region, and the European settlers brought with them curing techniques that produced the infamous cured meat – biltong.

West and Central Africa were far less influenced by the European settlers. Centuries before the Europeans arrived, West African people were trading with the Arab world in spices and thus typically West African food is filled with hot spices.  With the least contact with the “outside world”, Central African food remains the closest to traditional ingredients and cooking techniques. The only notable adoption of cassava, peanut, and Chile pepper plants arrived along with the slave trade during the early 16th century.

With no doubt african are blessed with multi cuisines and based on this I am putting the below 20 most popular cuisines in and across the nation's that make up the content.

1. GARRI.

2. BILTONG.

3. EKPAN KWUKWOR.

4. MANDAZA.

5. INJERA.

6. CHERMOULA.

7. JELLOFRICE.

8. COUSCOUS.

9. KACHUMBARI

10.TAGINE.

11. DODO.

12. SHANHA FUL.

13.BIRYANIS AND PILAUS

14. SUYA

15. WAT &WOT

16. FEIJOADA.

17. MAFE.

18. SADZA/ UGALI

19. FUFU

20. ORKANNA .

For more on AFRICA AFRICAN issues, see our next post. 

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