Comparison of East and West African food and the influence they had in the U.S.?

This paper will compare and contrast the different eating habits and examine the cultural dining of West Africa to East Africa. Africans like most of the world outside of American and London aren’t fanatical on fast food even though it is becoming more popular most people eat at home or at relatives or friends home. Even Africans living outside of Africa love to cook rather than dine out in most cases. This report was based on interviews from Africans who grew up in traditional African homes in Africa. All references have been crossed checked and stories verified on how most African dishes are prepared, and their history. More research was done by the books listed, as well as other references such as internet sites. Most of this data has been collected over years of experience of living with Africans from both West and East Africa.

It is custom when one person is cooking they do not just cook for themselves, or even their family but for anybody who might drop by unexpected. Big pots are used to cook and food is rarely wasted because the people here are very close and always welcomed to each other’s homes. That is what is the best part of being Africa, communities are still one, when one eats everybody eats. Throughout this paper Africans dishes consisting of: chicken, fish, goat, beef, shrimp, and even crab. As well as fruits such as: oranges, bananas, guava, mangos are very popular and will be listed. African vegetables are just like anywhere else carrots, peas, and corns as well as exotic roots that are hard to find in the states like cassava, efo, and cola nut.

African cuisine combines traditional fruits and vegetables, meats and fish from the oceans that surrounds the continent, and a marinade of cultures, colonies, trade routes, and history. Africa cuisine is as broad as the continent, from dry desert, to tropical wetlands, plains, and jungle. The media has given Westerners the wrong impression of Africa, from the movies showing colonization to savages misrepresenting the birthplace of all man.

African cuisine is on the rise in the U.S., due to the growing popularity as Africans bring the dishes of their country to family restaurants to this country. To an outsider of this culture it is impossible to categorize African food. I have even seen cooking shows call plantains (a starchy banana) a Cuban or Spaniard dish but it originated on both coast of Afr...

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...de and remixed other culture recipes and used it for their own.

The most important lesson in this paper is to see how culture came from Africa, and that we are all the same. Learning about different cultures is vital for man kind to survive, many wars are fought because of ignorance. Even in Africa food is important and cherished. With this paper my appreciation of African food has increased, as well as my menu selection. I enjoy African food because there is not much diary in the typical African diet.

References

1. A Slice of Africa: Exotic West African Cuisines by Chidi Asika-Enahoro

2. South African Gourmet Food and Wine: Traditional South African Food and More by Myrna Rosen, Lesley Loon

3.Berthina Fomenky native of Cameroon, and resident of Senegal

4.Beryl and Rhoda Gwan native of Cameroon

5.Limbikani Kamlognera native of Malawi

6. http://www.ethiopianrestaurant.com/.

7. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Cookbook/Kenya.html

8. http://www.motherlandnigeria.com/food.html

9. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mi.html#Govt.

10.http://www.csis.org/press/ma_2003_0127.htm

11. Beza Semenew http://www.bezamodel.com/Homepage.htm