Africa’s Great Cuisines

If you are like most people, then Africa is perhaps known to you more for it’s African Safaris and white sandy beaches but when it comes to food and drink in Africa, african food is generally quite gentle of course the likes of snails and rodents in west africa, snakes in central africa, monkeys, cats and dogs eaten in Ghana, termites, or even locusts eaten in Uganda are exceptions.You will often find foods like pizza, burgers (or at least attemps at pizzas and burgers) chicken and fries in most towns in Africa.

Should you want a taste of the local cuisine you will often find a lot and a variety depending on where you are in Africa. By far the best known of Africa’s finest traditional dishes are Moroccan, Ethiopian and Swahili dishes. Morocco offers tajines, couscous (possibly getting its insipation from West Africa, where it’s traditionally steamed in baobab leaves), great tasting soups and scrumptious sweets. In East Africa and along the coast Swahili cooking rules supreme, making loving use of herds and spices introduced into Africa from Arabia, India and the Far East, with seafood being especially good.

Ethiopian cuisine is in a class of its own: injera as it is known is the staple and is a large pancake from which diners which they use to scoop up dollops of highly spiced stews.Seafood is prepared differently in different regions. In Zanzibar it is prepared spicy, in coconut sauce or steffed with vegetables and cooked in tomato, in Senegal. In South Africa, Brits can truly feel at home with fish and chips off course minus the newspaper. In many parts of Africa especially in the countryside it’s best to eat fish close to the places where they are caught.For the meat eaters or carnivores as they like to be called, Kenya’s carnivore restaurant in Nairobi is a great place to indulge. Here you can try game meat from impala steaks, hippo, ostrich to crocodile burgers which by the way taste either like fish or chicken depending on what the crocodiles which are often breed on crocodile farms were feed on.

In southern africa namely South Africa, Namibia and Botswana popular barbecues feature all kinds of meat and Boerwurst sausages which are often washed down with good beer.

In rural Kenya smoked wild birds are also a popular snack.

African Food Mystery Meals

Even though you are not likely to be offered most of these meals in a five star hotel or a resturant in down town Africa, these meals indeed are traditionally eaten in the countryside. In central Africa snakes and especially vipers which locals consider very tasty are eaten.

Gorillas and Monkeys

If you care to sample your closest relative then Guinea-Bissay is the place to be for a taste of monkey brain. Gorilla hands are also eaten in the Congo However eating your close relative is never a good idea from a conservation point of view and also if you care for your health. Monkeys have been known to transmit all kinds of diseases including ebola.

Cats and Dogs

One man’s pet is another man’s meal. Ghana’s Volta Region is the place to eat pussy (tastes like chicken) In Nigeria dog meat which is roasted like beef is also belived to improve your sex life.In fact Nigerians have dog meat terminology

404: A dog is also called 404 after the French-built Peugeot pick-up van, a tribute to a dog’s ability to run fast.

Headlights: A dish with the eyes of a dog as the most prominent component.

Gear Box: Dog’s liver, heart and kidneys (usually more expensive than ordinary meat)

Tyre: A dog’s legs. Some claim that eating a ‘tyre’ makes you a fast runner

Telephone: A dog’s tail

Sentencing: The act of clubbing a dog to death rather than slaughtering it.

Termites

In some parts of Kenya, cameroon, uganda and Malawi termites are a favourite especially during the rainy season when young boys and girls will often light kerosene lamps to attract winged termites which are then collected and either pan -fried or eaten alive with a little salt or chilli to taste and a bottle of beer to wash it down.

Locusts and Grasshoppers

The tought of eating locusts isn’t that bad when you think terrestrial prawns and they are quite tasty when fried in butter.

Rodents

There is a west African dish called akrante or “grasscutter” a giant size rat like creature. Its meat is particularly fine, but it’s the fur that is contained in it’s sauces and stews which make it an unforgettable dish. Further South there exists a fragile balance between man and rodent where occasionally mice populations reach plague like numbers eating grain and local are left with nothing much to eat but the rats and mice. In Malawi and Mozambique you could be treated to barbecued mice.

Mopane worms

These giant grubs also known as macimbe are eaten in Zimbabwe and other parts of Southern Africa. Deep fry or roast then add a bit of salt to taste and you are good to go.

Bugs insects and Other crawlies

For fried beetles head to Zimbabwe hard on the outside gooey in the inside. cooked grubs and giant grilled rhinoceros beetles are eaten in Congo, butterful larve in Burkina Faso, and millipedes in Namibia.