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Kwanzaa: An African-American Celebration of Culture and Cooking

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Kwanzaa is rapidly approaching and as with all holidays requires detailed preparation. Contained in these pages are all the components you need for a meaningful Kwanzaa celebration with ritual and food.

Eric Copage shares with us the origins of Kwanzaa as well as his own experiences in first celebrating the holiday. We are introduced to the seven princples of Kwanzaa and the relevance that it has for the African-American community.

You can't have a true celebration unless good tasting food is present. At the very heart of the book are over 120 recipes for you to prepare for the Kwanzaa feast. The recipes are samples from Africans throughout the diaspora. Indulge yourself with pigeon peas and rice from the Caribbean. Avocado mousse with shrimp sauce from Brazil will tantilize your taste buds. A pot of mustard greens from "down home" (the South) in the United States will fill your belly. And let us not forget spicy matoke from Kenya. If you mouth is not watering yet for these delicious treats then something must be wrong with your taste buds.

The above dishes are easy to make and you are provided with suggested menus for the feast. If by chance some of the unusual ingredients are not available in your local grocery store, never fear. Mail order resources are provided for you in the book. As Kwanzaa approaches enjoy the friendship, food and celebration but must of all stand firm with the principles which bind us together as a people. Enjoy! Happy Celebration.

Excellent authentic recipes from Latin America, The Caribbean, South America and the U.S. brought by Africans in Colonial era and enjoyed by their decendants around the World today.

Eric Copage's book mostly (all but about thirty pages) consists of recipes suggested for the Kwanzaa celebration. However, in the introductory pages to this 1991 book, he also has a great deal of concise information about the holiday.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Kwanzaa means 'first fruits of the harvest' in Swahili, but there is no festival of that name in any African society." (Pg. xiii)
"Kwanzaa, which runs from December 26 to New Year's Day, does not replace Christmas and is not a religious holiday. (We now celebrate both." (Pg. xiii-xiv)
"Since the celebration of Kwanzaa is only a quarter of a century old this year, it is still very dynamic." (Pg. xxiv)