Historic African Cuisine Panel at the ASFS/AFHVS Conference

I'm back from 2 weeks of graduations, being with family and friends, tasting Jamaica, and generally being treated like a queen. There is much to catch up on, beginning with a few words about the panel on "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on African Cuisines" held on May 30th at Penn State and the small dinner party afterwards. The panel went well (despite being scheduled for 8 a.m.
Saturday morning): we started off with Cindy Bertelsen's overview of African flavor principles (see her Gherkins and Tomatoes website for more information: principles-out-of-africa/ (the basics); principles-out-of-africa-a-fish-tale/; principles-out-of-africa-its-the-beans/ (fermentation and oilseeds); http://gherkinstomatoes.com/2009/06/06/10572/ (pumpkins). Igor

Cusack followed up with a discussion of cookbooks and national identity in Africa. Through what seemed incredible indifference and inefficiency on the part of the U.S. Embassy in Yaounde, Forka Leypey Mathew Fomine was unable to receive a visa in time to attend the conference, so I (Fran Osseo-Asare)
summarized his original research on the evolving role of the African giant land snail in the diet in parts of Cameroon. Please contact me if you wish to obtain an electronic copy of his fascinating paper. I then made some observations of my own about the cassava "saga" in Africa, and the transformation of cassava from an orphan crop to a nurturing "mother," and an important emerging cash crop in West Africa. Culinary historian Michael Twitty rounded out the session with a look at ethnic culinary variation in West African links and contributions to American Southern cooking. There was some lively discussion, and the general consensus was that there is a huge need for more of these kinds of opportunities to focus on African cuisines. I would
personally love to see sessions on African cuisine in literature and art, or on African cuisines and culinary tourism. Our biggest frustration that Saturday morning was "so much to say, so little time!"

For more pictures, go to BETUMI on flickr (ASFS/AFHVS May 30, 2009).

History of Entertaining in Sub-Saharan Africa

Greenwood Press has just published (2008) an eclectic 2-volume encyclopedia on the history of dining and entertaining called Entertaining: From Ancient Rome to the Super Bowl. I'm happy to announce that I was invited to write a lengthy entry for Sub-Saharan Africa in it.

That section runs 10 pages (vol. 2, pp. 468-478), and begins with a quote from Chinua Achebe's classic novel Things Fall Apart, where one of the oldest members of an Ibo extended family proclaims:

"A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so."

I'm glad I was able contribute to the project, and am proud that in this encyclopedia Africa is credited alongside others at the global table. Incidentally, I do note that Achebe could have said "kinswomen" as well.

East and West African Food and Foodways

African food historians and scholars who are based in Africa can lead lonely lives. They need contact with and support of like-minded people. We need them to share their insights and publish their findings. I recently heard from Forka Leypey Mathew, in Yaounde, Cameroon, who has studied the social history of how traditional food preparation and eating patterns have changed among several groups in Cameroon, including the Bakweri (occupants of Buea and Limbe), Mbo (occupants of Melong, Santchou, Nkongsamba and other villages), Bamum (occupants of Foumban), Wawa (occupants of Banyo), Doowaayo (occupants of Poli), Guidar (occupants of Guider) and Kotoko (occupants of Kousseri and the entire Cameroon section of the Lake Chad Basin). Matew (fleypeymathew@yahoo.fr) welcomes correspondence with others who share similar interests.

Scholars outside of Africa are also doing exciting things. In 2006, Verena Raschke completed her doctoral work cojointly at the University of Vienna in Austria and Monash University in Australia, studying traditional East African food habits and their health benefits, and has made quite a bit of information available online. She's also been actively publishing the results of her research. For example:

1. Raschke V, Cheema B. Colonization, the New World Order and the Eradication of Traditional Food Habits in East Africa: Historical Perspective on the Nutrition Transition. Public Health Nutrition, in press, 2007

2. Raschke V, Oltersdorf U, Elmadfa I, Wahlqvist M, Cheema B, Kouris-Blazos A. Investigation of the Dietary Intake and Health Status in East Africa in the 1960s: A Systematic Review of the Historic Oltersdorf Collection. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, in press, 2007

3. Raschke V, Oltersdorf U, Elmadfa I, Wahlqvist M, Cheema B, Kouris-Blazos A. Content of a novel online collection of traditional east African food habits (1930s-1960s): Data collected by the Max-Planck-Nutrition Research Unit, Bumbuli, Tanzania. Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 16:140-51, 2007

4. Raschke V, Oltersdorf U, Elmadfa I, Wahlqvist M, Cheema B, Kouris-Blazos A. The need for an online collection of traditional African food habits. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND Online), 7(1), 2007; Available at: http://www.ajfand.net/Issue-XII-files/PDFs/VERENA_2330.pdf

5. Raschke V, East African Food Habits On-line. In: Wahlqvist ML. Healthy Eating Club. Melbourne, HEC Press. Web-site: http://www.healthyeatingclub.org/Africa/; 2005

Let's continue to identify and promote those who take African cuisine and food history seriously!