By Miles Richardson
Through my exhibit, I look at different perspectives of African cuisine. I chose to explore African cuisine as my project because I was unfamiliar with it coming in and wanted to expose myself to an unknown cuisine. Africa brings a unique pallet to the world’s culinary table. Africa’s cuisine is nothing flashy or world-famous like Japan’s sushi, but it delivers many staple ingredients like meats, beans, and spices. Westerners have seen African cuisine as a vehicle to a nostalgic past, whereas African cooks’ reflection of their cuisine brings up the influence of African slave trade, demonstrating a dissonance in understanding Western and domestic views of African food.
In my exhibit, I chose three sources that focused on different locations to view different perspectives on African cuisine. The first source highlighted America. Bae Sandler wrote a cookbook in 1964 to give Americans a glimpse of what African cuisine was like and compared it to a simpler time, while not acknowledging slavery. The second source highlighted South Africa. Author Lesley Faull is a South African of Dutch descent, and she displays African cuisine as a celebration of their ancestors, however, she problematically leaves out any mention of slavery. The third source highlighted Brazil and Nigeria. Author, Ozoz Sokoh, shared a recipe that explained how a Nigerian dish, Akara, travelled to Brazil to become Akarajé through the transatlantic slave trade. When Jocelyne Sambira was asked if Akarajé was the only dish exported to the Americas through the slave trade, she answered, “Not at all. Jambalaya, feijoada, gombo, and hopping johns are all re-adapted dishes” (Sambira). To understand African cuisine, one must understand the heavy, saddening history of Africans’ exodus from Africa.
In this exhibit, there is one author, Sokoh, who reflects upon African cuisine by pointing out the significance the African slave trade had on Africa’s cuisine. However, on the other hand, two authors, Sandler and Faull, ignore the Transatlantic Slave Trade by choosing to focus on a simpler, more nostalgic past. The website “Slavery and Remembrance” says, “The Dutch were quick to involve themselves in the transatlantic slave trade. Between 1596 and 1829, the Dutch transported about half a million Africans across the Atlantic” (Dutch Slave Trade). It is incredibly troublesome for Faull to compare fireside cooking to the start of civilization, yet leave out the truth of African cuisine before the Dutch moved into Africa. These perspectives bring to light a clear misunderstanding between Westerners and domestic views of African cuisine.
“Dutch Slave Trade.” Slavery and Remembrance, 2022. http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0145
Sambira, Jocelyne.“Slave Trade: How African Foods influenced modern American cuisine.” https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/slave-trade-how-african-foods-influenced-modern-american-cuisine
