African cuisine facts for kids
Traditionally, the different cuisines of Africa use a mix of plants and seeds. They usually don't rely on food brought in from other countries. In some parts of Africa, the traditional diet includes many foods made from root vegetables like yams or cassava.
Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa each have their own special dishes, ways of cooking, and eating customs.
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Central African Cuisine
Central Africa stretches from the Tibesti Mountains in the north to the huge Congo River rainforest. This area has been influenced by the Swahili culture, which is a mix of Bantu, Yemeni, Omani, and Indian traditions. You can see Swahili influences in dishes like mandazi (a type of doughnut), pilaf rice, kachumbari (a fresh salad), and sambusa (savory pastries).
Portuguese traders also influenced Central African food, especially in Angola and Sao Tomé. For example, makayabu, the local word for salt fish, comes from the Portuguese word bacalhau.
Central Africa's food also shares similarities with East, West, and Southern African cuisines. For instance, babuté (similar to bobotie) is shared with the south, and nyama choma (grilled meat) with the east.
The main ingredients here are plantains, cassava, rice, and yam. Starchy foods like Fufu are often made from fermented cassava roots. They can also be made from plantain, corn, or yam. Fufu is usually served with grilled meat, fish, stews, greens, and spicy piment.
Many local ingredients are used, such as spinach stew cooked with tomato, peppers, chili, onions, and peanut butter. Eastern Central Africa is one of the few regions in Africa that uses potatoes as a main food, because they grow well there.
Cassava leaves are also eaten as cooked greens. Peanut stew is popular too, often made with chicken, okra, ginger, and other spices. Beef and chicken are favorite meats. Sometimes, bushmeat like crocodile, elephant, antelope, and warthog are also served.
East African Cuisine
The food in East Africa changes from place to place. In the inland areas, where people raise cattle, traditional meals usually don't include meat. This is because Cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats were seen as a form of wealth, not usually for eating.
In some areas, East Africans drink milk and blood from cattle, but rarely eat their meat. Other people are farmers who grow different grains and vegetables. Maize (corn) is used to make ugali, which is like the fufu found in West and Central Africa. Ugali is a starchy dish eaten with meats or stews. In Uganda, steamed green bananas called matoke are a main part of many meals.
About 1000 years ago, merchants from Oman and Yemen settled on the Swahili Coast. Their influence is strong in Swahili food. You'll find steamed rice with spices like saffron, cloves, cinnamon, and pomegranate juice.
Later, the British and Indians arrived, bringing foods like spiced vegetable curries, lentil soups, chapattis, and different pickles. These have influenced local dishes. Common ingredients in this region include oranges, lemons, limes, chili, maize, and tomatoes.
In the Horn of Africa, the main traditional dishes in Eritrean cuisine and Ethiopian cuisine are tsebhis (stews). These are served with injera (a flatbread made from teff, wheat, or sorghum) and hilbet (a paste from legumes like lentils and fava beans). Eritrean and Ethiopian food is very similar due to their shared history.
In the highlands, injera is eaten daily. It's made from teff, wheat, barley, sorghum, or corn, and looks like a spongy, slightly sour pancake. People usually share food from a large tray in the middle of a low table. Many injera are layered on the tray and topped with spicy stews. Diners tear off pieces of injera and dip them into the stews.
In the lowlands, the main dish is akelet, a porridge made from wheat flour dough. A ladle is used to scoop out the top, which is filled with berbere (spice) and butter sauce, surrounded by milk or yogurt.
Ethio-Eritrean cuisine often includes various vegetable or meat side dishes and main courses, usually a wat (thick stew), served on injera. People don't use utensils; instead, they use injera to scoop up the food.
Tihlo, made from roasted barley flour, is popular in some Ethiopian regions. Traditional Ethiopian food does not include pork or shellfish. This is because these foods are forbidden in the Jewish and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faiths. It's also common to share food from the same dish.
Somali cuisine is a mix of different influences, reflecting Somalia's long history of trade. All food is served halal, meaning no pork, no alcohol, and no blood. Lunch, called Qaddo, is often a big meal.
Different kinds of bariis (rice), especially basmati, are usually the main dish. Spices like cumin, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon are used to flavor these rice dishes. Somalis often eat dinner late, sometimes as late as 11 pm during Ramadan.
Xalwo (halwo) or halva is a popular sweet treat for special events like Eid celebrations or weddings. It's made from sugar, cornstarch, cardamom, nutmeg, and ghee. After meals, homes are traditionally filled with the scent of frankincense or incense burned in a dabqaad.
North African Cuisine
North Africa is along the Mediterranean Sea and includes countries like Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Sudan. The roots of North African food go back to ancient empires, especially in Egypt, where many dishes are very old.
Over centuries, traders, travelers, invaders, and migrants have all influenced North African food. The Phoenicians brought sausages. The Carthaginians introduced wheat and semolina. The Berbers turned semolina into couscous, which is a main staple food there. Olives and olive oil were used even before the Romans arrived.
From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs brought many spices, like saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. These spices greatly influenced the food. The Ottoman Turks brought sweet pastries. From the New World, North Africa got potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, and chili peppers.
Many North African countries have similar dishes, sometimes with different names. For example, the Moroccan tangia and Tunisian coucha are both meat stews cooked slowly overnight. Sometimes, two different dishes might share the same name. For instance, a tajine in Morocco is a slow-cooked stew, but in Tunisia, it's a baked omelette or quiche-like dish. There are clear differences in cooking styles, from the rich flavors of Moroccan palace cooking to the spicy dishes of Tunisian cuisine and the simpler foods of Egypt and Algeria.
Southern African Cuisine
The food of Southern Africa is sometimes called "rainbow cuisine" because it's a mix of many cultures: local African societies, European, and Asian. To understand the local African food, it's helpful to know about the different native peoples of Southern Africa.
The largest group were the Bantu-speakers. Their descendants today include groups like the Ndebele, Shona, Zulu, and Xhosa. They arrived about 2,000 years ago, bringing farming, animal raising, and iron tools. So, Bantu-speakers grew many grain crops and raised cattle, sheep, and goats. They also grew pumpkins, beans, and leafy greens.
A smaller group were the original people of the region, the Khoisan. They were hunter-gatherers, meaning they hunted wild animals and gathered wild plants. After the Bantu-speakers arrived, some Khoisan started raising cattle but didn't grow crops.
People's diets often defined them. Bantu-speakers ate grain dishes, meat, milk, and vegetables. They also had fermented grain and milk products. The Khoi-Khoi ate meat and milk, while the San hunted and gathered. In many ways, the daily food of South African families today can be traced back to what their ancestors ate. The Khoisan ate roasted meat and also dried meat for later.
Their diet is seen in the Southern African love for barbecue, usually called a "braai" in South Africa, and biltong (dried preserved meat). Traditional beer was common and added nutrients. It was a custom for families to offer visitors plenty of beer. Women brewed the beer, and a housewife's status depended on her skill at making delicious beer.
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Milk was very important in the Southern African diet. Cattle were a man's most valuable possession. A married man was expected to provide milk to his family and meat when he slaughtered animals. Since there was no refrigeration, most milk was soured into a type of yogurt.
Today, many Black South Africans enjoy sour milk products sold in supermarkets, similar to buttermilk or yogurt. On weekends, they often have a "braai" with "pap and vleis," which is maize porridge and grilled meat.
Basic ingredients include seafood, meat (including wild game), poultry, grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Fruits include apples, grapes, mangoes, bananas, papayas, avocado, oranges, peaches, and apricots. Desserts might just be fruit, or more Western-style puddings like Malva Pudding, influenced by British and Dutch cooking. Meats include lamb, venison, ostrich, and impala. Seafood includes crayfish, prawns, tuna, mussels, oysters, and lobster. There are also many traditional and modern alcoholic beverages, including European-style beers.
West African Cuisine
A typical West African meal is made with starchy foods and can include meat, fish, and various spices and herbs. Many different staple foods are eaten across the region, such as fufu, banku, kenkey (from Ghana), foutou, couscous, tô, and garri. These are served with soups and stews. Fufu is often made from starchy root vegetables like yams, cocoyams, or cassava. It can also be made from grains like millet or plantains.
The main grain or starch varies by region and ethnic group. Corn has become very popular because it's cheap and makes a nice white product. Banku and kenkey are corn dough staples, and gari is made from dried grated cassava. Rice dishes are also widely eaten, especially in the dry Sahel region. Examples include benachin from The Gambia and Jollof rice, a popular West African rice dish.
Seeds of Guinea pepper, a native West African plant, were used as a spice and even reached Europe long ago. Centuries before Europeans arrived, West Africans traded with the Arab world. Spices like cinnamon, cloves, and mint became part of local flavors. Later, the Portuguese, French, and British influenced the regional foods, but only a little.
Local cooking and recipes in West Africa remain deeply connected to local customs. Ingredients include native rice, fonio, millet, sorghum, Bambara groundnuts, black-eyed peas, and root vegetables like yams, cocoyams, sweet potatoes, and cassava. Cooking methods include roasting, baking, boiling, frying, mashing, and spicing. Many sweets and savory snacks are also prepared.
West African cooking techniques are changing. In the past, West Africans ate less meat and used local oils like palm oil and shea butter. Baobab leaves and other local greens were common during certain times of the year. Today, the diet includes more meats, salt, and fats. Many dishes combine fish and meat, including dried and fermented fish. Dried fish is often fried in oil and cooked in a sauce with hot peppers, onions, tomatoes, and spices like soumbala to make a flavorful stew.
In some areas, beef and mutton are preferred, and goat meat is the main red meat. Suya, a popular grilled spicy meat kebab flavored with peanuts, is sold by street vendors. It's usually made with beef or chicken. It's common to have a lot of seafood, and seafood is sometimes mixed with other meats. Guinea fowl eggs, chicken eggs, and chicken are also popular.
For drinks, water has a strong cultural meaning in many West African nations, especially in dry areas. Water is often the first thing a host offers a guest. Palm wine, made from fermented sap of palm trees, is also common. It's sold in sweet (less fermented) or sour (more fermented) varieties. Millet beer is another popular drink.
See also
In Spanish: Gastronomía de África para niños
