| Baking
Soda |
Sometimes used in African cooking to approximate the taste of indigenous
salts which were obtained by drying or burning leaves or barks of
various plants.
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| Bitterleaf |
(Ndole, Vernonia amygdalina) Variety of African Greens. To reduce
the bitter taste it should be soaked and washed before cooking.
Dried bitterleaf may be obtained in African import grocery stores.
In Africa both humans and chimpanzees use bitterleaf medicinally,
to fight intestinal parasites and cure stomach complaints.
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| Banana leaves |
Used to wrap food for steam-cooking.
|
| Coconut |
(Coconut palm, Cocos nucifera) tree of the palm family, probably
native to the Indonesia/Malaysia region, but long dispersed throughout
the world's tropical areas, which yields a fruit prized for its
juice and meat, which are used in cooking. Other food products derived
from the coconut palm include toddy (or palm wine, the fresh, fermented,
or distilled sap), palm cabbage (the tender leaves from the top
of the tree that is eaten as a vegetable).
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| Cowpeas |
Cowpeas (a.k.a. China Beans, Black-Eyed Peas, Black-Eyed Beans,
Vigna unguiculata) a legume, are native to Asia, the Middle East,
and perhaps Africa. They were cultivated in the Mediterranean region
in ancient times, and have been grown all over Africa for centuries.
They are thought to have been introduced to the Americas via the
Atlantic slave trade. In the Southeastern United States they used
in the traditional dish Hoppin' John.
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| Maggi® Cubes or Maggi® Sauce |
L'Arome Maggi, brand of bouillon cube and flavoring sauce (somewhat
similar to soy sauce) invented by Julius Maggi (1846-1912), now
made by Nestlé. Very popular in Africa.
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| Peanuts |
(Groundnut) The Arachis hypogaea is an unusual plant because
its edible seeds (which are legumes) grow and ripen underground.
Peanuts are native to South America, and were cultivated there
for centuries before they were first encountered by Europeans
in the early 1500s. Europeans introduced peanuts to Africa (and
perhaps North America) at that time.
Peanuts were soon widely cultivated throughout Africa, catching
on quickly because they were similar to a plant already cultivated
by Africans, the Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea or Voandzeia
subterranea). Similar, but the new world peanut proved both easier
to harvest and more productive (peanuts have more fat than cream;
more protein, minerals, and vitamins than beef; and more calories
than sugar).
The peanut soon replaced the Bambara groundnut, taking the older
plant's place and even its name (peanuts are often called "groundnuts"
in Africa), such that the Bambara groundnut is now called an "underutilized
and neglected crop". Enslaved Africans popularized peanuts in
North America. Africans also gave the peanut one of its many names
in America: the Kikongo word for peanut is "nguba", or as they
say in the southeastern United States, "goober" or "goober pea".
Eventually the combination of Africans in America and peanut
cultivation led to George Washington Carver, the agricultural
chemist who developed dozens of uses for the peanut.
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| Rice |
Asian Rice (Oryza sativa) is truly an ancient food crop, known to
have been cultivated and consumed over 7,000 years ago. Both Malayo-Polynesian
colonizers from the Pacific Ocean islands, and Arab-Persian colonizers
and traders from the Middle East brought Asian Rice to Africa's
eastern coast in ancient times.
It is not widely known that there are species of rice native
to Africa that were cultivated in ancient times in the Western
and Central interior parts of the continent before the arrival
of Asian Rice.
This indigenous variety, African Rice (Oryza glaberrima), sometimes
called African Red Rice, has been mostly abandoned by farmers
and consumers in favor of the Asian varieties, much of it imported.
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| Palm Oil |
The fruit and oil of the African oil palm (Elaesis guineensis) are
used in many African dishes. The fruit of the African oil palm are
called palm nuts.
Red palm oil and palm butter are made from the palm nuts, and these
products give many African sauces, soups, and stews (such as Moambé,
Nyembwe, and Palm Oil Chop) their distinctive taste and red color.
Red palm oil and canned palm butter (also called Palm Soup Base,
Sauce Graine, Noix de Palme, or Cream of Palm Fruits) is exported
from many African countries and can be found in African import
grocery stores. (Don't confuse red palm oil with the white palm
oil. Red palm oil is made from the fibrous fruit of the palm nut.
White palm oil is made from the seed kernel.) African oil palms
(as well as other palms) are also a source of sap that is used
to make palm wine and distilled alcohol.
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