The Africa Cookbook

It is hard to complain about a book that is so well written and attractively put together. Ms. Harris has done a very good job, and this is a welcome addition to the small (but growing) collection of African cookbooks. Many African dishes (e.g., Poulet Yassa or Groundnut Stew) deserve to be as well known as classic dishes from Europe, Asia, or the Americas, and Ms. Harris is doing something to make make these dishes better known. She has also collected a great many lesser known recipes, so there's something here for everyone. To the extent that she provides some information about African food, it tends to be anecdotal, though nothing is incorrect as far as I can tell. It may be a bit too much to expect one book to describe the gastronomy of an entire continent. (Could we imagine a book called "The Europe Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent"?) and therein is the problem. This book's title says "continent" and it contains recipes from Western Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and some from Northern Africa. My real complaint is the complete absence of recipes from Central Africa -- the Congo River basin area. This willful ignorance (in the sense of "to ignore") of Central Africa seems to be common among "fair-weather Africanists"; it also occurs in "Wonders of the African World" by Henry Louis Gates. It is distressing to see that even as we enter the 21st millenium there is still a "dark place", an unknown place on the map of Africa, much as Conrad described in "Heart of Darkness" over a century ago. True, there has been a civil war going on in Congo, and before that Zaire was not an easy place to travel. But there are many Congolese who live in Europe and America who could have provided insight into to the gastronomic traditions of Central Africa. Ms. Harris seems to have picked only the low hanging fruit. Of course it is much easier and pleasant to travel and dine in Senegal and Ivory Coast, or Kenya and Zanzibar rather than Congo and the Central African Republic, but if you want to say your book covers the continent, you can't ignore the very heart of Africa. Ms. Harris has written a good book, despite the fact that it ignores the very heart of Africa. If you're interested in cooking you should have some African recipe collections; this is a good one. Other good African cookooks that contain not only recipes but also very good writing that puts the recipes into a cultural context (but also mostly ignore Central Africa) are: Ellen Gibson Wilson - "A West African Cookbook: An introduction to food from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone."Laurens van der Post - "Foods Of The World: African Cooking" (from Time-Life) and "First catch your Eland: a taste of Africa"

Jessica Harris is a national treasure. This is so much more than a cookbook, though it is certainly an excellent representative of that genre. In Harris's works, you get a palpable sense of the foods of Africa, but also the spirits and culture with which each recipe and dish is interwoven. I'm an unabashed fan. If only I could cook.

This book is wonderful for anyone interested or experienced in Africa or cooking, because it gives recipies from all over the continent from soup to nuts, ie. main courses, salads, desserts, the range of food items. Easy to follow, delightful to read, many old-time photos involving markets. and food in Africa.