In a place of vast cultural, geographic and culinary diversity, “African” is no more meaningful a way to characterize food than “American” is for food of North America.
Our Northwest bakes, grills and poaches salmon; the Southwest ladles green chile; the Deep South loves fried catfish; and New Eng- land chowder is legendary.
Similarly, food treasures abound in the 50-plus nations that make up Africa, the world’s third-largest continent. To give some sense of its size, consider this: China, India, Europe, Argentina, New Zealand and the continental United States could fit onto its land mass.
Now, Ethiopian-born New York chef Marcus Samuelsson is shining light on African food. All of it. From Algeria to Zimbabwe.
In his new book, “The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa” (Wiley, $40), Samuelsson turns his attention the continent of his birth. In doing so, he opens a door to flavors known to relatively few gastronomes.
Samuelsson, along with his sister, was adopted at a young age when their mother died in a tuberculosis epidemic. Reared in Sweden, they grew up speaking Swedish as their first language. Young Marcus also grew up cooking with his grandmother, particularly intrigued by her ability to produce wonderful foods from memory and without precise measurements.
He went on to become a highly successful chef in Europe. He made his mark in New York City, popularizing Swedish food at his seminal restaurant, Aquavit, winning one culinary honor after another, plus laudatory mentions in publications as diverse as Crain’s New York and Gourmet.
Samuelsson, who worked on the book for 10 years, says he wanted to bring African food to a wider audience.
“My first book was about restaurant food,” he says. “This book is about home food. African food sounds esoteric, but a lot of same foods we eat in Europe are eaten in Africa, such as squab with foie gras, which came from Egypt,” he says.
Some of the words might be new, but the ingredients are available at specialty stores or through mail order. Some are in regular grocery stores.
“Harissa, a condiment known throughout Northern Africa, is essentially a red chile paste,” says Samuelsson. “We learned Japanese vocabulary with the popularity of wasabi, sashimi and sushi. Now “injera” (Ethiopian flatbread) is becoming part of the food vocabulary too. I want to widen that.”
His sentiments are echoed by author and food historian, Jessica Harris, who has also written extensively about Africa and its impact on American food.
“I saw Marcus’ book recently at a friend’s house,” she says. “I hope this will be the beginning of interest in the food of the African continent being looked at in new and different ways.
“People don’t even think of the (African) continent in terms of the culinary. They think of it in terms of bloated bellies from National Geographic and ugly headlines. This is not to deny Darfur, but to look at a continent in all of its kaleidoscopic range.”
Samuelsson guides readers on a 344-page journey that includes 200 recipes meant for home cooks. They introduce the reader to multicultural aspects of various cuisines, such as those of Libya, a former Italian colony, and Africa’s role in the spice trade, as revealed through the use of fenugreek, cardamom pods, sumac, tamarind and okra.
Quite unexpectedly, Samuelsson’s journey of discovery led him to his father, whom he thought to be dead. He was living in a small Ethiopian village. They have remained in touch.
“It seemed ridiculous that I knew about more about France and Italy than my own country,” Samuelsson says. “The Italians, the French, they take great pride in their food and culture. That’s when I said ‘OK; this book is not going to be about just Ethiopian and African food, it’s also going to be about a culinary disapora.”
So he went to Brazil, Trinidad and the American South, including the Sea Islands, to see what people there ate that was similar or identical to the foods of Africans who settled there.
“There’s a reason there are peanuts in Georgia and the Carolinas,” he says. “West Africans use them in their stews. The palm oil in Bahia is the same as palm oil in Uganda. The okra in Mississippi is the same as the okra in Togo and Benin.”
