‘The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent,’ by Jessica B. Harris
The events of summer 2020 — the killing of George Floyd, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the beautiful strength of the protests — led us to take a deep look into our coverage of cooking cultures. We quickly realized we had given Africa seriously short shrift, with only North Africa represented.
I had long admired Jessica B. Harris, the preemient expert in America on the food and foodways of Africa and the African diaspora, author of 12 acclaimed cookbooks, inductee of the James Beard Who’s Who in Food and Beverage in the United States, a founding member and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient of Southern Foodways Alliance and a longtime professor at City University of New York. Her important 1998 work, The Africa Cookbook, seemed a great place to start exploring the cuisines of the rest of the continent. Her Introduction, “African Attitudes,” is so moving and beautifully written I immediately ordered (and began reading) her 2017 memoir, My Soul Looks Back.
A chapter on the history of African food and foodways, “Beyond Bare-Breasted Maidens and Cannibal Cooks,” provides excellent background and context — certainly for the cooking of the continent, but also for African American cooking. Following that, “A Cornucopia of Cuisines” compellingly runs down each of the specific cuisines, enriched by her personal stories of traveling and eating her way across and up and down the continent.
Post-Its mark more than 20 recipes I want to try. Among them:
• Akara — white bean fritters from Nigeria.
• Beignets de Sardines — sardine fritters from Algeria.
• Tomato and Okra salad from Nigeria
• Komkomer Sambal — cucumber sambal from South Africa
• Harissa from Morocco
• Pili Pili Sauce from West Africa
• Oula’ass Fee el Forn — baked whole rutabaga from Egypt
• Ful Medames — Egyptian-style bread beans from Egypt
• Camarão Grelhado Piri Piri — grilled shrimp pili pili from Mozambique
• Yassa au Poulet Classique — classic chicken yassa from Senegal (Dr. Harris calls this one of her “hallmark dishes”)
• Mafé — a peanut butter lamb stew from Senegal
• Zelbo Gomen — boiled kale with spices from Ethiopia