Customer Reviews

The Africa Cookbook

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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"

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.

A very interesting cookbook for the serious African/African American cook or for the researcher of the native foods of Africa. There is a lot of compelling information in the book. But, I would rate this book from a cook's point of view as challenging. The presentation is beautiful, but you must have the resources and expertise to follow these instructions of many of the recipes.

i have enjoyed making recipes from and just reading this book. i almost always make the "curried corn" for potlucks and i have seen people eat it warm, room temp and even cold, with tortilla chips or spread on bread. i have used it as a relish for fish tacos, as well. the reviewer who tossed hers out as "grabage" (maybe she should have bought a dictionary, instead) may not have enjoyed the idea of an informational-type cookbook, but i appreciate the short history on the recipes and ingredients and it will continue to be used in my kitchen.

This book contains a survey of food across Africa. The author, a food historian, draws on her many experiences traveling through the continent in this collection of recipes. The recipes are authentic and tasty, and many of them are quite easy to prepare. However, I found a few of them a little unrealistic (such as frying slices of four small eggplants in a single tablespoon of olive oil without so much as soaking them in saltwater first), leaving me wondering to what extent Harris had actually tested the recipes. Nonetheless, overall the book contains many exciting recipes and would make a welcome addition to the library of any adventurous cook.

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.

i have enjoyed making recipes from and just reading this book. i almost always make the "curried corn" for potlucks and i have seen people eat it warm, room temp and even cold, with tortilla chips or spread on bread. i have used it as a relish for fish tacos, as well. the reviewer who tossed hers out as "grabage" (maybe she should have bought a dictionary, instead) may not have enjoyed the idea of an informational-type cookbook, but i appreciate the short history on the recipes and ingredients and it will continue to be used in my kitchen.

The book is a nice introduction to African cooking with hard to find senegalese recipes. However, the ethiopian selection is ridiculous, there are so many wonderful possibilites and yet she chose to include a recipe for raw beef with instructions that make it clear she knew very few if any readers would actually want to make this dish. That I found very disappointing.

Jessica Harris is an inspirational author with vast knowledge of African cooking. There are more than just recipes in this cookbook.

The title promised an inside look and stoveside excursion into the heart of Africa. Two entire pages devoted to "How to Boil Corn" caused me to throw this dog out with grabage. Regretful purchase.....