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Excerpts

The Congo Cookbook's recipe pages contain many excerpts pertaining to African cooking and food from a variety of published sources. This page lists selected excerpts by author, along with a brief description of the excerpt and a link to the page containing it.

Also see the excerpts from antique African cookbooks: Rare Recipes.

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- Anon

• Living off the Country
  
  
  • "Banana Chips"
    recipe
    on the Plantains page.
  • "Bean Croquettes (Kwasi)"
    recipe
    on the Akara page.

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Chinua Achebe

• Things Fall Apart
  
  
  • "Yam, the king of crops"
    describes the importance of yams in traditional Ibo culture
    on the Yam page.

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Leo Africanus

• The Description of Africa
  
  
  • "Salt is in very short supply"
    scarcity of salt in Timbuktu
    on the Chicken in Cumin Sauce page.

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Maya Angelou

• A Song Flung Up to Heaven
  
  
  • "Mother brought out a recipe for Jollof rice that I had sent her"
    author's recipe for Jollof rice in Ghana
    on the Jollof Rice page.

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Thomas Astley

• A new General Collection of Voyages and Travels; consisting of the most esteemed relations, which have been hitherto published in any language; comprehending everything remarkable in its kind, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America
  
  
  • "The first thing they take care of"
    use of corn as staple food
    on the Banku & Kenkey page.

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Samuel White Baker

• The Albert N'Yanza: Great Basin of the Nile and Explorations of the Nile Sources
  
  
  • "The principal requirements of the natives were supplied by this most useful tree"
    use of plantains in Uganda
    on the Pombe, Tembo, and Máwá page.
  • "We used the milk native fashion"
    about milk in Uganda
    on the Maziwa, Maziwa Mabichi, and Mtindi page.
• The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran Arabs
  
  
  • "I accepted an invitation to shoot a savage old bull hippopotamus"
    description of traditional, and modern hippopotamus hunting
    on the Hippopotamus page.
  • "The harpoon for hippopotamus and crocodile hunting is a piece of soft steel about eleven inches long"
    description of traditional, and modern hippopotamus hunting
    on the Hippopotamus page.
  • "the flesh of the elephant is extremely coarse, the foot and trunk are excellent, if properly cooked"
    elephant meat
    on the Elephant Soup page.

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Ibn Battuta

• Ibn Battuta in Black Africa
  
  
  • "They cook banana before it is ripe"
    description of bananas in milk
    on the Plantains in Coconut Milk page.
  • "from it kuskusu and porridge are made"
    couscous made from fonio grain
    on the Couscous page.

---

Joan Beech

• Follow the Red Dirt Road: The Story of our Life in West Africa from 1947 to 1958
  
  
  • "a local delicacy called Ashanti Chicken"
    Ashanti chicken
    on the Ashanti Chicken page.

---

Peter Biddlecombe

• French Lessons in Africa: Travels with my briefcase through French Africa
  
  
  • "spécialité gastronomique"
    a different kind of meow mix
    on the Cat page.

---

Emily G. Bradley

• A Household Book for Tropical Colonies
  
  
  • "Palm-Oil Chop is another famous West Coast dish"
    dedscription of palm-oil chop
    on the Palm-Oil Chop page.

---

Bill Bryson

• Bill Bryson's African Diary
  
  
  • "Jubilee Market is an extraordinary place"
    abundance and quality of food in Kenyan market
    on the Kachumbari page.

---

Richard Francis Burton

• The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration
  
  
  • "Boko-Boko is the roast beef--the plat de resistance--of the Eastern and African Arab"
    description of Boko-Boko, or Harees, and Arab cuisine in Africa
    on the Boko-Boko page.
  • "Meat is the diet most prized"
    meat in Eastern African diet
    on the Meat Recipes page.
  • "Milk is held in high esteem"
    milk in Eastern African diet
    on the Maziwa, Maziwa Mabichi, and Mtindi page.
  • "Onions are expensive in the interior"
    onions in Eastern Africa
    on the Tanzanian Meat Stew page.
  • "Rice of the red quality"
    African Rice, Oryza glaberrima, in Eastern Africa
    on the Rice page.
  • "Such is ugali, or porridge, the staff of life in East Africa"
    description of ugali, boiled maize-meal or millet
    on the Ugali page.
  • "The plat de résistance was, as usual, the pillaw"
    his thoughts on pilau
    on the Zanzibar Pilau page.
  • "The Arabs ... use it extensively in cooking"
    Tamarind tree and fruit in Africa
    on the Mchuzi wa Samaki page.
  • "The Elaeis Guiniensis . . . springs apparently uncultivated in large dark groves on the shores of the Tanganyika"
    African Oil Palm
    on the Red Palm Oil page.
  • "The fireplaces are three stones or clods, placed trivet-wise upon the ground"
    African fireplace
    on the Soup & Stew Recipes page.
  • "The principal inebriant is a beer without hops, called pombe"
    traditional beer and wine
    on the Pombe, Tembo, and Máwá page.
• Wanderings in West Africa
  
  
  • "All families have some forbidden meat"
    food taboos and variety of meat consumed
    on the Bushmeat page.
  • "Fufu is composed of Yam, Plantain, or Cassava"
    description of Fufu
    on the Fufu page.
  • "Kankie is native bread"
    describes Kankie, or Kenkey, similar to Ugali and Baton de Manioc
    on the Banku & Kenkey page.
  • "Kinnau is fish opened, cleaned, and stuffed with mashed green pepper"
    description of fish recipe
    on the Fish & Onions in Tomato Sauce page.
  • "Most of the dishes are boiled"
    describes African soups and stews
    on the Sauce Recipes page.
  • "Palaver sauce is a mess of vegetables"
    describes Palaver sauce
    on the Palaver 'Sauce' page.
  • "Palm-oil chop is the curry of the Western coast"
    describes Palm-oil chop
    on the Palm-Oil Chop page.
  • "The principal festival in the year is the Yams Custom"
    describes the yam harvest festival
    on the Yam page.
• Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast
  
  
  • "A stunted Pariah dog"
    dog meat
    on the Dog page.
  • "The Wasawahili have some fifty different ways of preparing it"
    cassava tubers in the Swahili diet
    on the Cassava Tuber page.
  • "fowls may be bought in every village"
    chickens, etc. in Africa
    on the Chicken Recipes page.
  • "the relish or sauce of which the Gaboon people are so fond"
    odika, or wild mango kernel sauce
    on the Beef in Wild Mango Kernel Sauce page.
  • "the staff of savage life"
    plantains in Eastern Africa
    on the Plantains page.

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William T. Close

• A Doctor's Life: Unique Stories
  
  
  • "authentic African dishes"
    Autenticité in Zaire's cuisine
    on the Bushmeat page.

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Maryse Condé

• Segu
  
  
  • "For a new trade had started to develop"
    palm oil trade in 19th century
    on the Palm Butter Soup page.
  • "What a strange fruit it was, the tomato!"
    tomatoes in Bambara culture
    on the Dahomey Fish Stew page.

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Buchi Emecheta

• The Slave Girl: A Novel
  
  
  • "Cassava thrived in almost any soil"
    harvest and processing of cassava tubers
    on the Baton de Manioc & Chikwangue page.
  • "The best agidi she had ever seen in her life"
    agidi, a cornmeal staple
    on the Banku & Kenkey page.

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Olaudah Equiano

• The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African
  
  
  • "Our manner of living is entirely plain"
    description of cooking and eating in Western Africa, c. 1750
    on the An African Dinner, c. 1750 page.
  • "The natives are extremely cautious about poison"
    poisoned food
    on the Poison page.

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Family Advisory Board of the CIA

• Spies, Black Ties, & Mango Pies: Stories and recipes from CIA families all over the world
  
  
  • "Chicken Moamba"
    Chicken in Palm Nut Oil
    on the Poulet Moambé / Poulet Nyembwe page.

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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

• Sorghum and Millets in Human Nutrition
  
  
  • "Couscous"
    How to make couscous
    on the Couscous page.

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James George Frazer

• The Golden Bough
  
  
  • "A Power of Increasing the Fruitfulness of the Plantain-Trees"
    Traditional beliefs re agriculture
    on the Plantains page.
  • "Porridge is Made from the New Grain"
    Grain porridge
    on the Ugali page.
  • "The ceremony of eating the new yams at Onitsha"
    Yam ceremony
    on the Yam page.
  • "Whatever the fisherman’s real name may be, he is called mwele"
    Traditional beliefs re fishing
    on the Fish & Greens page.

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Ewart S. Grogan

• From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North
  
  
  • "they themselves never eat them"
    Europeans eat eggs
    on the Chicken Recipes page.

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James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw

• A narrative of the most remarkable particulars in the life of James Albert Ukawsaw_Gonniosaw, an African prince, written by himself
  
  
  • "they supply the inhabitants of the country with meat, drink and clothes"
    Uses of palm tree in Central Africa
    on the Coconut Juice page.

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Jean-Pierre Hallet

• Congo Kitabu
  
  
  • "insects contain, weight for weight, at least twice as much animal protein as the finest red meat"
    Insects
    on the Insects page.

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Eddy L. Harris

• Native Stranger: A Black American's Journey into the Heart of Africa
  
  
  • "It's different. But it's good"
    Rat stew
    on the Cane Rat page.
  • "Very sweet & Why we always drink three cups of tea"
    Tea in West Africa
    on the Green Tea with Mint page.
  • "What was that?"
    Kola nut
    on the Kola Nut page.

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Ernest Hemingway

• Green Hills of Africa
  
  
  • "I had heard and read that the Masai subsisted only on the blood of their cattle mixed with milk"
    Masai diet: blood, milk, and more
    on the Cow Blood page.

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Paul Hoefler

• Africa Speaks: A Story of Adventure (The Chronicle of the first Trans-African Journey by Motor Truck from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Lagos on the Atlantic, through Central Equatorial Africa)
  
  
  • "A much harder beast to domesticate"
    Domesticating African elephants
    on the Elephant Soup page.

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Elspeth Huxley

• The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
  
  
  • "one old, black cooking-pot"
    one-pot meals in Africa
    on the Soup & Stew Recipes page.

---

Isaiah

• Bible
  
  
  • "does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin?"
    Cumin in the Bible
    on the Beef in Cumin Sauce page.

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Phyllis M. Kaberry

• Women of the Grassfields: A Study of the Economic Position of Women in Bamenda, British Cameroons
  
  
  • "a sauce (ntee) of oil, salt and pepper is used, to which may be added on occasion fungi, pounded egusi seeds . . ."
    Egusi sauce and various staples
    on the Egusi Sauce page.

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Ryszard Kapuscinski

• The Shadow of the Sun
  
  
  • "The beers can be various & a hot local beer made out of millet"
    Traditional beer in Nigeria and Uganda
    on the Pombe, Tembo, and Máwá page.
  • "The drinking of morning coffee is an age-old ritual here"
    Coffee in Zanzibar
    on the Kahawa page.
  • "This is a fortunate village: water is nearby"
    Fetching water in Senegal
    on the Water page.

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Mary Henrietta Kingsley

• Travels in West Africa
  
  
  • "A sort of Sea-pie they make with Meat and Fish"
    Stew/sauce thickener made from wild mango kernel
    on the Liboké de Poisson page.
  • "Fou-fou, Kank, M'vada, Agooma"
    Fufu-like foods made from manioc tubers
    on the Fufu, et cetera page.
  • "Odeaka cheese ... is made from the kernal of the wild mango"
    Stew/sauce thickener made from wild mango kernels
    on the Beef in Wild Mango Kernel Sauce page.
  • "We had the snake for supper"
    Snake meat
    on the Snake page.

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Mark Kurlansky

• Salt: A World History
  
  
  • "Charmula"
    Recipe for Charmula
    on the Chermoula page.

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M. Largeau

• Cuisine Africaine: Specialites du Gabon
  
  
  • "Sauce Nnani"
    Banana leaf cookery
    on the Liboké de Viande page.

---

Leviticus

• Bible
  
  
  • "you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper"
    Insects are kosher
    on the Insects page.

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David Livingstone

• Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
  
  
  • "A large caterpillar, called 'Nato,'"
    Caterpillar consumption
    on the Insects page.

---

Nelson Mandela

• Long Walk to Freedom
  
  
  • "samp, sometimes plain or mixed with beans"
    South African umngqusho (corn and beans)
    on the Umngqusho page.

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Peter Matthiessen

• The Tree Where Man Was Born
  
  
  • "Ugali that is subsistence in East Africa"
    Ugali: fufu-like food made from grain in Eastern Africa
    on the Ugali page.

---

Margaret Meyers

• Swimming in the Congo
  
  
  • "My father's favorite food"
    Breadfruit
    on the Breadfruit page.
  • "a Congolese fish needs hot Congolese peppers"
    Fish cooked with hot peppers
    on the Capitaine & Pili-Pili in Palm Oil page.

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Nick Middleton

• Kalashnikovs and Zombie Cucumbers: Travels in Mozambique
  
  
  • "Mozambique had been famous for her prawns"
    Mozambique's famous prawns and their name
    on the LM Prawns page.

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Robert Milligan

• The fetish folk of West Africa
  
  
  • "Africa abounds with deadly poisons"
    Poisoned food in Africa
    on the Poison page.

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Robert Hamill Nassau

• Fetichism in West Africa: Forty Years' Observation of Native Customs and Superstitions
  
  
  • "The most attractive native mode of cooking fish and meat"
    Fish cooked in banana leaves
    on the Liboké de Viande page.
• In an Elephant Corral, and other Tales of West African Experiences
  
  
  • "Not a single pound of all that mass of flesh was thrown away or wasted"
    Elephant hunting and butchering in Gabon
    on the Elephant page.
• My Ogowe: Being a Narrative of Daily Incidents During Sixteen Years in Equatorial West Africa
  
  
  • "An Extreme Longing for the Onion"
    Onions uncommon in Africa
    on the Fish & Onions in Tomato Sauce page.
  • "Boiled Ripe Plantains"
    Plantains
    on the Plantains page.
  • "Quite a variety of meats would from time to time be brought"
    Various meats in Gabon
    on the Bushmeat page.
  • "The most valuable article . . . was salt"
    Salt: rare and valuable item in Africa
    on the Saka-Saka page.
  • "The same hunter . . . had just killed a half-grown female hippopotamus"
    Hippopotamus hunting and butchering
    on the Hippopotamus page.
  • "a la Ashantee"
    Ashanti chicken prepared by cook from Gold Coast (Ghana)
    on the Ashanti Chicken page.

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Ben Okri

• The Famished Road
  
  
  • "The aroma of the marvellous cooking overpowered the room"
    Wild boar for dinner in Nigeria
    on the Wild Boar in Groundnut Sauce page.

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Sembene Ousmane

• God's Bits of Wood
  
  
  • "The stalls of the women who sold foodstuffs"
    Food vendors in Senegal
    on the Boiled and Mashed Vegetables page.

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Mungo Park

• Travels in the Interior of Africa
  
  
  • "A dish made of sour milk and meal, called Sinkatoo"
    Grain porridge and milk
    on the Caakiri page.

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Filippo Pigafetta

• Report of the Kingdom of Congo and of the Surrounding Countries Drawn Out of the Writings of the Portuguese Duarte Lopez
  
  
  • "A Palm from which Oil, Wine, Vinegar, Fruits, and Bread are all Extracted"
    Uses of African oil palm tree
    on the Moambé Stew page.

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Joseph H. Reading

• The Ogowe Band: A Narrative of African Travel
  
  
  • "A Favorite Dish in the Bolando household is what is called an Ajomba of fish"
    Fish cooked in banana-leaf wrap in Gabon
    on the Liboké de Poisson page.
  • "Old Calabar is noted for its Palm-Oil Chop"
    Palm-oil chop in Nigeria
    on the Palm-Oil Chop page.
  • "The Operation of Making Eguma"
    Making fufu-like food from manioc tubers
    on the Baton de Manioc & Chikwangue page.
  • "The next morning there were fresh fish for breakfast"
    Grilled fish in Gabon
    on the Grilled Tilapia page.
  • "the art of making palm-butter"
    Making palm butter in Gabon
    on the Palm Butter Soup page.

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Theodore Roosevelt

• African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist
  
  
  • "the woman is the drudge and beast of burden"
    Women and agricultural work
    on the Women's Work page.
  • "This Extraordinary Habit of the Honey Bird"
    How the honey bird guides people to honey
    on the Cardamom Tea page.

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Emily Ruete

• Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar
  
  
  • "How highly coffee is esteemed by the Orientals, everybody knows"
    Coffee in Zanzibar
    on the Kahawa page.
  • "some details about the eating arrangements"
    Meals at the royal palace in Zanzibar
    on the Dinner in Zanzibar page.

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Isobel Ryan

• Black Man's Palaver
  
  
  • "Country-Chop"
    Country chop, groundnut stew or palm-oil chop
    on the Groundnut Stew page.

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Wole Soyinka

• Aké: The Years of Childhood
  
  
  • "it was a rare pupil indeed who would claim that he had ever tasted snake"
    Snake meat
    on the Snake page.
  • "Beere had a passion for moin-moin"
    Moin-moin (steamed bean cake) in Nigeria
    on the Moyin-Moyin page.
  • "The flavours of the market"
    Snack vendors in Nigeria
    on the Akara page.

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John Hanning Speke

• Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
  
  
  • "A dish of plantain-squash and dried fish"
    Plantains, fish, and pombé
    on the Matoke page.
  • "devouring the white ants"
    Ant eating
    on the Insects page.

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The Ghana Government

• Ghana Nutrition and Cookery
  
  
  • "Palm Oil"
    
    on the Red Palm Oil page.

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Richard Trench

• Forbidden Sands: A Search in the Sahara
  
  
  • "Tea-drinking . . . was the pivot of desert existence"
    Tea drinking
    on the Green Tea with Mint page.
  • "rice and cooked dried camel meat"
    Camel meat soup
    on the Camel page.

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Laurens van der Post

• First Catch Your Eland: A taste of Africa
  
  
  • "a pagan and unrepentantly savage tomato"
    Traditional African foodstuffs unknown to Europeans
    on the Tomato Sauce page.
  • "the greatest natural experts in cooking fish"
    Fish
    on the Grilled Tilapia page.
• Venture to the Interior
  
  
  • "The more one knows of Africa, the less one feels this northern end to be a part of it"
    One Africa? or two?
    on the Sub-Saharan Africa page.

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Philippe Wamba

• Kinship: A Family's Journey in Africa and America
  
  
  • "Children who couldn't eat pillipili were objects of scorn"
    Spicy African hot sauce
    on the African Hot Sauce & Pili-Pili Sauce page.
  • "a large mass of wriggling caterpillars"
    How to prepare grubs
    on the Insects page.

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Herbert Ward

• Scribner's Magazine
  
  
  • "One of their favorite beverages"
    Sugar cane wine
    on the Pombe, Tembo, and Máwá page.
  • "The Natives have Various Modes of Fishing"
    Fishing in Congo
    on the Fish & Seafood Recipes page.

---

Alice Werner

• Myths and Legends of the Bantu
  
  
  • "every syllable as ending in a vowel, and every vowel to be pronounced"
    How to pronounce African words
    on the African Recipe Nomenclature page.

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