Fran
Osseo-Asare
Abstract
Despite significant recent research into culinary history,
rarely have studies utilized West African cookbooks or
cookbook authors extensively. This paper identifies primary
Ghanaian/West African cookbooks in English during the latter
half of the 20th century and develops a typology
using authors and audiences as a framework for analysis.
The cookbooks' origins, development, and relationship to
African-American and African diasporan cookbooks are briefly
examined. Finally, the paper posits the need for the establishment of
a West African culinary archive.
Food
as a Research Topic
There is currently an explosion of research and writing
about food, a subject that "illustrate(s) the intriguing
intersections between (the) public and private sphere,
the collective and the individual, and nature and culture." (Makelþ et
al. 2000). The wide-ranging emerging field of food studies
brings together researchers, practitioners and policy makers
from the humanities, professions, physical and social sciences - from
nutritionists, physicians, dieticians, nurses, public health
and social workers - (Kittler and Sucher 2000; Counihan and
Van Esterik 1997), to literary and performance studies
scholars and artists (Fisher 1990) philosophers (Curtain
and Heldke 1992) and theologians (Sack 2000) political
scientists (Cusack 2000), culinary and social historians
(Wheaton 1996), geographers (Bell and Valentine 1997),
anthropologists, and sociologists. While anthropologists
have long looked at food and culture, the past several
years have seen the publication of a number of textbooks
in the fledgling field of "the sociology of food," (Whit
1995; Wood 1995; McIntosh 1996; Beardsworth and Kein 1997;
and Germov and Williams 1999).
Cookbooks as a Research Tool
Within this multidisciplinary mix,
cookbooks have emerged as helpful tools for analysis when
used in conjunction with other contextualizing resources
(Oliver 1996; Messer et al. 2000). Feminists are interested
in what cookbooks reveal about food and
identity, especially in the sense of body image, gender roles
and domesticity (Neuhaus 1999). Culinary historians use
cookbooks to track social history (Weaver 1982; Messer
et al. 2000). Political economists as well as social and
cultural anthropologists have used cookbooks to analyze
the development of a national identity (Cusack 2000; Appadurai
1988).
Such "cookbook" research has tended
to emphasize European cookbooks (or "cookery books"), especially
those of English and French cuisine, though there has been
work on Indian, Chinese, and U.S. cookbooks. For an introduction
and overview of the several threads of interest, see the
section on "Culinary
History" by Messer, Haber, Toomre, and Wheaton in The
Cambridge World History of Food, 2000, Cambridge University. Recently, research on African
culinary history and historiography has begun to appear
(Newman 2000; Houston 2000; Cusack 2000; Feldman 1998).
African
Culinary Research
While the U.S. research has included
cookbooks by African-Americans (Longone 2001), only rarely
have studies extensively identified or utilized sub-Saharan
African cookbook themselves. There
are probably several reasons for this former lack of interest
in sub-Saharan African cookbooks among both lay people
and scholars. One is the oral tradition. Traditionally
young girls in Ghana learn to cook from parents, aunts,
and big sisters, and are expected to have mastered all
basic recipes by age thirteen or fifteen - i.e., before marriage.
The assumption in Ghana and other parts of sub-Saharan
Africa has been that learning to cook from a book shows
inadequacy. Consulting a book would be a serious embarrassment
for a cook and her family. (Ayensu, 1970, pp.xiii-xiv,
Osseo-Asare 1997). This heritage of cookbooks as a sign
of incompetence probably hindered the development of a
market for them despite the development of literacy, urbanization,
and a middle class. Also, since overwhelmingly women are
the ones who cook (as wives, caterers, mothers, sisters,
children, aunts), the cookbooks that were written have
tended to remain on the margins of academia and relegated
to the invisible female sphere of activity (i.e., appropriate
for domestic science, home science, and consumer science
teachers and training colleges).
Other reasons for the lack of interest
in such studies are ignorance and ethnocentricity. Africa
has had extensive bad press in the West that contributes
to a popular image of the still dark continent (e.g., AIDS,
starvation, war, corruption, natural disaster, refugees,
poverty). In a 1992 book, Africa's Media Image , Hawk argues persuasively that:
African, as it is used in the Western press,
does not mean anyone who lives on the African continent,
but rather people who are black and live on the African
continent. It is a colonial label. North Africans and descendants
of European settlers are not included in the term. This
narrow, racial definition of Africa, structured by the
language employed to tell the African story, tells readers
and viewers that the continent has a simple, homogeneous
culture. . .Like anthropologists and explorers of the colonial
era, journalists are empowered to paint an image of Africa
by listing its deficiencies with respect to Western norms.
Coverage of Africa which emphasizes poverty, disease, and
famine corresponds to the existing view of Africans as
have-nots. . .we are able to create an image of Africa
in the American mind that is a chronicle of its deficiencies
to the Western standard. (Hawk, p. 9)
Africa's relative global powerlessness
supports the bias that sub-Saharan Africa is a poor and
illiterate society that has no "real" (or "haute") cuisine,
a view reinforced by books like Rozin's The Flavor-Principle
Cookbook. Published in 1973, it omitted coverage
of the food of sub-Saharan Africa, though in an expanded
and revised Ethnic Cuisine (1983,
1992) a brief section on West African cuisine was included.
Rozin finds "sub-Saharan cuisines are neither rich
nor complex, perhaps because the land has always suffered
from a difficult climate and a paucity of natural resources" (p.
78). Her assessment is reminiscent of that of respected
anthropologist Jack Goody, who did extensive research in
West Africa for his book Cooking,Cuisine and Class, but found that, unlike China or the
West, places like Ghana never developed a "high" or "differentiated" cuisine. He buttresses his opinion of "the
limited nature of African cooking in contrast to Eurasian" by
citing the illustrated Time-Life series on ÔFoods of the
World.' The 1970 book on African cooking was written by
a white South African man and noted culinary author:
Of the eight chapters (in the African volume), four deal with
the cookery of South Africa, one with Portuguese Africa,
and the sixth with the Highlands (formerly known as the ÔWhite
Highlands') of East Africa. A further chapter is devoted
to ÔThe Ancient World of Ethiopia' which I see as falling
within the area of differentiated cuisines. The remaining
chapter covers the rest of Africa south of the Sahara,
that is, the whole of non-colonial, non-Ethiopic Africa. Even
here the author, Laurens van der post, can find so little
to say about indigenous cooking that he has broadened the
scope and calls the chapter ÔNew Cuisines for New Nations.' (p.
212-213)
In an article on South African culinary
historiography in Safundi: The Journal of South African
and American Comparative Studies, Houston comments that
Culinary history is, as all history
typically has been, the story of the conquerors; but this
is not all that history can or should be. . .it is important
to interrogate the manner in which the history of culinary
traditions (is) told . . .How much violence is there in
the process of imposing culinary traditions onto another
culture?
Related to ignorance,
bias, and disinterest may be the reality that historically
Westerners, especially in the U.S., have had relatively
little direct contact with subSaharan Africa's cuisine
and culture via business, the military, schooling, or tourism.
While some religious, education-related and public service
contact has occurred, it has not been on a large scale.
Certainly, the slave trade introduced large numbers of
West Africans into the culture of the Americas, and research
has been done on the Columbian exchange and how the African-American
diet evolved and influenced the diet of the U.S., especially
in the South (Viola and Margolis 1991; Goyan and Sucher
2000). However, though there are some similarities, there
are important differences between the available ingredients,
cooking techniques, and cultural preferences of Ghanaians/West
Africans and African Americans who have lived in the U.S.
for many generations. Barring the unwilling immigrants
of the slave trade, until recently there have not been
large influxes of African immigrants into the U.S. Despite
the ubiquity of their "chop bars," street vendors, and
catering businesses, sub-Saharan Africans do not have a
tradition of restaurant going as it exists in Western societies.
As a result of these combined historical realities, African
culinary influences are often loosely and vaguely covered
by unexamined references to "Diasporan" cooking.
There is currently an
upsurge in interest in African, including West African,
cuisine in North America, as the publication or release
of a number of African cookbooks illustrates (Cusick 1995;
Hafner 1993, 1996; Osseo-Asare 1993; De Witt et al. 1998;
Harris 1998; Jackson
1999; Grant 1998; Spivey 1999; Hatchen 1998; Otoo 1997).
As African immigrants enter the United States, modest African
restaurants are beginning to open (Labat 1997), and a search
under the topic of "African restaurants" on the Internet
will bring up dozens of sites around the world, such as "The
Fufu Lovers Guide to African Restaurants: A Guide to Restaurants
Serving Sub-Saharan African Cuisine" (http://www.concentric.net/~jmuehl/afrifood.shtml).
This paper's aim is modest: to present
an introduction to Ghanaian cookbooks in English during
the latter part of the last century and to provide a framework
for analysis. Narrowing the focus to one Anglophone African
country requires obvious tradeoffs. The choice of Ghana
might seem arbitrary given the often artificial country
boundaries in West Africa - the Ewe are found in Benin and
Togo as well. Or, a case could be made for a regional look
at the cookbooks that corresponds to the commonly accepted
four regional cuisines of Africa (North, East, West and
Central/South). However, this would, among other challenges,
have required broadening the topic to include Francophone,
Lusophone and Spanish-speaking former colonies. Another
possibility would have been to include Anglophone West
African countries such as Nigeria. This is particularly
tempting given the classic 1934 Kudeti Book on Yoruba
Cookery and the 1957 Miss Williams Cookery Book, reprinted in 1980. In the end, depth
won out for this initial offering. Still, a caveat is in
order. While confident that this paper considers the major
Ghanaian cookbooks published in English in Ghana or written
by Ghanaians, it dares not claim to be complete. Possible
weaknesses include its emphasis on U.S. publishing, and
lack of access to materials published for use in Ghanaian
secondary and/or catering/teacher training institutions,
as well as specialized publications by educational institutions
like the African Studies Program at the University of Illinois
or the African Outreach Program at UCLA. Further research
should remedy these weaknesses. The paper does include
asterisks before any references to significant materials
that the author was unable to access directly, but that
warrant recognition.
Historical
Context
Some preliminary comments should be
made to put Ghana in historical context. It was known as
the "Gold Coast" before it achieved independence in 1957,
the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to do so, and under
the charismatic leadership of the Pan-African leader Kwame
Nkrumah. Ghana was known not only for its gold, but also
for the "black gold," the high-quality cocoa it produced
and exported globally. The British colonizers were preceded
by the Portuguese, who arrived in the late 15th and
the Dutch in the late 16th centuries, and who
built a number of fortresses along the coast. These, such
as Elmina Castle, became infamous holding points for human
cargo during the slave trade.
Compared to other sub-Saharan African
countries, at the time of independence Ghana had a fairly
well-developed educational infrastructure established by
the colonial powers and religious organizations. It also
had a long and rich tradition of scholarship and collaboration
with Western academics, especially anthropologists and
sociologists (e.g., Birmingham et al., 1966; Amedekey,
1970; Little 1973; Robertson 1984). Four years ago Ghana
held its first democratic election in many years, and 1981
coup leader, J. J. ("Jerry") Rawlings resigned his military
position and became its elected civilian president. Ghana
was in the news again recently when the ruling party was
voted out of office and the leader of one of the opposition
parties, the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) J. A. Kufour,
became "The Millennium President." On January 7, 2001 for the first time
since independence, there was again a peaceful transfer
of power from one elected president to another in Ghana.
With independence in 1957 came a heady
optimism for the future of the continent, both within Africa
and in the West. Ghana's early years of independence coincided
with the civil rights movement and "war on poverty" in
the U.S. during the 1960s, and the enthusiasm for the "Peace
Corps," when idealistic young Americans headed off to places
like Ghana to assist with development efforts. There was
a great burst of expectation of progress and empowerment
for the continent. The 1970s and beyond showed how naive
such hopes had been. The development literature is filled
with post-mortems of why staggering social, economic, political,
environmental, and agricultural problems arose (e.g., Lele
1975; 1981; Berg and Whitaker 1986). There was an exodus
of many Westerners from the country as survival became
the first priority, the infrastructure tottered, and military
coups occurred in 1966, and 1972, and 1981.
This paper breaks the publishing history
for cookbooks into three periods:
á
early independence,
the 1950s-mid 1970s
á
the stress
years, the late 1970s-1980s
á
contemporary,
the 1990s-2000
The paper assumes the relative size
and location of the cookbook publishers are important pieces
of information that serve as a guide to the audience and
perceived market for the cookbooks and the strength of
marketing distribution channels. Ghanaian publishers did
not have significant overseas distribution channels in
place for large-scale export of Ghanaian publications overseas,
particularly to the United States. The books published
within Ghana, all paperback editions, presumably target
Ghanaian consumers, with possibly a small secondary market
being expatriates and the tourism industry. Similarly,
self-published books in the United States or Great Britain,
or those by small or alternative presses, are in general
not expected to have the same impact as books by larger,
more established publishers. This idea will be developed
further throughout the paper.
Typology
One way to begin to analyze Ghanaian
cookbooks in English is to develop a typology of authors
and audiences. In other words, who wrote the cookbooks
and who were they writing for? One can set up a 2 X 2 matrix
with four cells, based on whether the cookbooks are intended
primarily for Ghanaians or nonGhanaians, and whether they
were written by Ghanaians or not, as shown in Table 1:
Table 1. Typology of Authors and Audiences
|
|
For
Ghanaians
(G)
|
For
NonGhanaians
(NG)
|
|
By Ghanaians
(G)
|
By G
For G
|
By G
For NG
|
|
By NonGhanaians
(NG)
|
By NG
For G
|
By NG
For NG
|
While it is readily admitted that these cells are not, in
reality, neatly mutually exclusive, the cookbooks do tend
to cluster in one or another cell. Let us consider each
cell in turn.
By
Ghanaians for Ghanaians
There
are five cookbooks in this category, with one additional
entry, though not a true "cookery book," a set of "cookery
cards" by the leading Ghanaian caterer Barbara Ba‘ta. The
cookbooks include books by Dede , Nyaho, et al., Eshun,
Dovlo et al., and the Ghana Home Science Association. See
Table 2.
Table 2. Cookbooks by Ghanaians for
Ghanaians
|
The
Early Years
|
Ghanaian
Favourite Dishes,
by Alice Dede, 1969
|
|
|
Ghana
Recipe Book by
Mrs. E Chapman Nyaho, Dr. E. Amarteifio, Miss J.
Asare, 1970
|
|
|
Barbara
Ba‘ta's West African Favorites Cookery Cards, by
B. Ba‘ta, 1972
|
|
The
Stress Years
|
Cowpeas:
Home Preparation and Use in West Africa by Florence E. Dovlo, Caroline E. Williams, and
Laraba Zoaka, 1976 (reprinted 1984) [by a Ghanaian
and two Nigerians]
|
|
|
Popular
Ghanaian Dishes by
Sylvia R. Eshun, 1977
|
|
Contemporary
|
Home
Economics for Schools, Book 2, by Ghana Home Science Association, 1990
|
The
cookbooks are educational in nature and were written essentially
by females. All the books were published in paperback.
All but the general home economics textbook, which includes
a section on food preparation, were written in the 1960s
or 1970s. All were published in the Accra/Tema area of
Ghana, with the exception of the book on cowpeas which
was published by the International Development Research
Centre in Ottawa. Its overseas publication probably also
explains how it could have been published during the extremely
stressful late 1970s and early 1980s, when publishing within
Ghana was nearly impossible. The Home Economics for
Schools, Book 2, was a cooperative
project between the Ghana Home Science Association and
the Saskatoon and District Home Economics Association,
with funds contributed by the Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA) through the Canadian Home Economics Association.
The books include primarily traditional recipes with some
Western recipes. Barbara Ba‘ta's cookery cards, while published
in Accra, were probably intended for a wider audience and
could have conceivably been included under the section
of the table "By Ghanaians for NonGhanaians." Barbara Ba‘ta
was introduced to a large international audience when a
photograph showing her catering a party was included in
the Times-Life series on African cooking by Laurens van
der Post mentioned earlier.
By
Ghanaians for NonGhanaians
The
second major category also includes five main entries which
can be further subdivided into those published in the West
and those published by small presses or self-published
for Western distribution. See Table 3.
Table 3. Cookbooks by Ghanaians for
NonGhanaians
Major
Publishing Houses in the West
|
|
|
The Early Years
|
The
Art of West African Cooking by Dinah Ayensu, 1972 (Doubleday)
|
|
Contemporary
|
A
Taste of Africa by
Dorinda Hafner, 1994 (Ten Speed Press)
I
Was Never Here and This Never Happened by Dorinda Hafner, 1996
(Ten
Speed Press)
|
Smaller
Western Presses/Self-published
|
|
|
The Early Years
|
A
Safari of African Cooking by Bill Odarty, 1971 (Broadside Press)
|
|
The Stress Years
|
|
|
Contemporary
|
[A
Safari of African Cooking reprinted 1992]
Authentic
African Cuisine from Ghana by David & Tamminay Otoo, 1997 (Sankofa)
The
Art of West African Cooking by Dinah Ayensu reprinted[self-published] 1994
A
Taste of Hospitality - Authentic Ghanaian Cookery by Marian Shardow, 1998 (Minerva)
|
Who were the authors? Dinah Ayensu,
daughter of a Ga chief and educated at the prestigious
Wesley Girls High School in Cape Coast and in England,
was the wife of a botanist working with the Smithsonian
Institute in Washington, D.C. Doubleday found her well-suited
as a spokesperson to interpret West African cuisine to
a U.S. audience. At about the same time Ayensu was writing
her book, an entrepreneurial Ghanaian in the U.S. sensed
that the time was ripe for an African cookbook. Appropriating
the image of exotic Africa and "safaris," one of the common
and positive images of Africa in the U.S., Odartey contacted
African embassies on the continent for representative recipes
from their nations and mobilized his own West African contacts
(including Barbara Ba‘ta) to compile a book of recipes.
Odartey's is one of the few offerings with a man's name
on the title page. Bill Odartey, a pseudonym for Bli Odaatay, saw
the book reprinted in 1987 and 1992, as interest in things
African began to rise again. In the "contemporary" years,
not only was Odartey's book reprinted, but Ayensu, now
operating her own tour group, regained rights to her 1972
book and reprinted 3,000 copies. Marian Shardow, educated
at the respected Achimota school in Ghana, furthered her
education in Hotel and Catering studies in the United Kingdom.
A residence hall manager at Imperial College, she wrote
her book after being unable to locate one in Ghana to give
to friends who requested a Ghanaian cookbook. Like Shardow,
the Otoos wrote their Authentic African Cuisine from
Ghana to
fill what they perceived as a gap in accessible and authentic
cookbooks with Ghanaian recipes for Americans.
Major publishers in the U.S., however
shunned publishing African or West African cookbooks by
Africans until the tide began to change two decades later.
In 1993 a Ghanaian woman living in Australia, a popular
entertainer there who began her career as an ophthalmic
nurse in London, saw her cookbook A Taste of Africa, based on her popular television
series of the same name, published by Simon and Schuster
Australia. The same year Ten Speed Press in California
published it in the United States. The book contained over
a hundred recipes, many recognizably Ghanaian. Most of
the books in this category contain collections of anecdotes,
stories, sometimes maps but almost always information to
familiarize those from outside the continent with the customs,
culture, foods and preparation techniques required to successfully
prepare the recipes. They provide an alternative look inside "Africa" that
counters the prevailing stereotype of poverty and starvation.
Hafner's A Taste of Africa is
the only full-color, lavishly illustrated hardback cookbook
(though it was also published in paperback) of those listed
in the "By Ghanaians for NonGhanaians" category, and the
illustrations and writing style both draw on her flamboyance
and storytelling ability to capture interest whether or
not the reader actually wants to try cooking the recipes.
Hafner followed this book with other successful cookbooks,
notably in 1996 the poignant and funny I Was Never Here
and This Never Happened, filled with stories and photographs and recipes from her
years growing up in Ghana, as well as her experiences living
outside Ghana. Tante Ama's African Cookbook is listed in the table without
comment because it is a widely referenced work, but one
that to date this writer has been unable to obtain a copy
of to review.
By
NonGhanaians for NonGhanaians
Up to this point, the typology has
been fairly manageable and straightforward. However, as
we move to the third category, cookbooks by nonGhanaians
for nonGhanaians, the picture becomes more complicated
and consideration of the cookbooks written by nonGhanaians
for nonGhanaians requires additional subdivision - first,
between nonGhanaians who are African and those who are
not. Within the nonAfrican category are three major groups:
expatriates who have lived in Ghana and have strong ties
to the culture and country, "heritage" cookbook authors,
generally nonAfrican blacks, who may have strong or weak
knowledge/cultural ties, and the miscellaneous "other" category
of authors, largely consisting of nonAfrican whites with
relatively weak cultural/knowledge ties to Africa. Race
once again intrudes as a variable. This classification
is, admittedly, messy and dissatisfying, but is the best
the author could devise. Table 4 summarizes these groups.
Table 4. Categories for Cookbooks
Written by NonGhanaians for NonGhanaians
|
NonAfricans
á
Expatriates
with strong cultural ties primarily based on living
or working there (primarily white)
á
Heritage
cookbooks, authors may have strong or weak cultural
ties (primarily black)
á
Other
cookbooks (primarily white authors)
|
Once again, the limitations of the typology are obvious. Labels
like "African" and "nonAfrican black" refuse to stay neatly
fixed. Rosamund Grant is "black," and "nonAfrican" (raised
in Guyana in the Caribbean), but her grandmother was from
the Kromanteng people of central Ghana. Jackson is white,
but was born and raised in Nigeria. However, the distinctions
still provide the useful clustering argued at the beginning
of this paper. Let us consider each piece in turn. Table
5 identifies major books written by nonGhanaians for nonGhanaians
by essentially white "expatriates," those who have a fairly
direct connection to Ghana via having lived, grown up,
or worked there and/or marrying someone who has.
Table
5. By NonGhanaians for NonGhanaians: Expatriates (lived
in Ghana/West Africa)
|
The Early Years
|
Kitchen
Safari by
Harva Hachten, 1970 (Atheneum) [Re-released as Best
of African Regional Cooking by Hippocrene in 1998]
A
West African Cookbook by
Ellen Gibson Wilson, 1972 (M. Evans & Co.)
in hardback; (Avon) in paperback
The
Anthropologists' Cookbook by Jessica Kuper, ed., 1977 (Universe Books in paperback Kegan Paul
in hardback) section on Africa, recipes from Ghana
by Esther Goody, Lynn Brydon [Re-released in 1997
by Kegan Paul]
|
|
The Stress Years
|
|
|
Contemporary
|
A
Good Soup Attracts Chairs by Fran Osseo-Asare, 1993 (Pelican) hardback
Best
of African Regional Cooking by Harva Hachten,
Hippocrene,1998 [Re-release of Kitchen Safari, 1970] paperback
The
Anthropologists' Cookbook by Jessica Kuper, ed., (revised
and expanded version of 1977 book, 1997, London
and New York: Kegan Paul)
South
of the Sahara (Traditional
Cooking from the Lands of West Africa) by Elizabeth
A. Jackson, 1999 (Fantail) paperback
|
