Is there an African cuisine?

slims (read people of Cape Malay origin) sell curry’! Is there an African cuisine? You might as well ask more of these types of questions. Is there a European cuisine? Is there an African dress?. For that matter, what is an African? But let us stay with African food for now.
Back to my three good ladies. I felt a rush of heat under the collar but decided on constructive engagement (lick ya lips Ronald Reagan). They fortunately arrived just before my lunch hour trade and I asked them to just wait for a few minutes and I’d talk to them. They quietly left after watching me sell some thirty or so curries in the next twenty minutes. Pap & Curry, Samp & Curry, Rice & Curry. To all sorts of people. Black, White, Coloured, local and foreign. Having sampled many curries, I am the very first to admit that my curry is nowhere near the best. At one stage I almost gave up trying to make chicken curry. Mrs Losamee Pather of Lameez Restaurant on Lower Main Road in Observatory, Cape Town makes my favourite chicken curry and when I crave some or want it on the menu for my dinner guests I go to her. On my African food eatery menu, however, mutton curry and samp outsold all other dishes. But is it an African dish?
I never managed to verbally engage my three customers. If they had waited I would have had a few things to tell them. Firstly, Muslim is a religious and NOT a racial or cultural category. Secondly Islam is alive, well and growing faster than any other religion on the African continent. There are tens of millions black African Muslims in Africa. Thirdly, curry is a spice, not a traditional/cultural weapon. It was introduced into East Africa many centuries ago by monsoon wind traders from the Asian subcontinent. Most people who use curry in Africa are not Muslims. All of the above notwithstanding, Mrs Pather (a Hindu woman, who inherited her recipes from her mother), still makes the chicken curry to die for! I normally get a pot-full and serve it at home with samp. It is African cuisine. Cape style.
It would be easy to simply say there is no such a thing an identifiable African cuisine and dismiss the question. That would be like telling the blind people in the elephant story that there is no such a thing as an elephant just because they have such differing experiences. The tail, the trunk the body.
A friend of mine uses the analogy of the sea. It’s the same mass of water – all around Africa. In Cape Town we live between Saldanha Bay and Mossel Bay and we harvest a delicious fish called snoek. Around Mozambique they swear by the prawns. It goes on . Its our different relationships with our sea. Perhaps a way of logically dividing Africa into culinary regions is possible. Central and Southern African, Eastern Africa and its Indian and Asiatic influences. North Africa with its Arabic and Mediterranian flavours and West Africa and the Forest Regions the land of the markets and colourful elaborate ceremonies. An elaboration on the typical foods of each Region is not my intention here. Food in Africa cannot be fully understood by looking at a menu or even inside the pot. Regional commonalites may easily be noticed in actual food types. But it is in the attitude towards food and eating and giving/ sharing of food that common themes emerge very strongly. A family always cooks more than the needs of the people expected at the table. In the Nguni languages there is a proverb – Isisu somhambi asinganani, singangenso yenyoni (the stomach of traveller if the size of a bird’s kidney) . This implores people to be generous as a stranger will never finish the family’s food supply.
When one is in a particular part of Africa it is always interesting to sample local culinary delights. There are always local ways of cooking even the same food that is found in other areas. A search for THE African Dish is not likely to be successful. Common attitudes towards food, eating and sharing tell more about Africans and their lives than the specific food in the plate. ?Babusi Sibanda . Cape Town 2006.