Safari holidays are now a major part of the African tourist industry and food has become an essen... more Safari holidays are now a major part of the African tourist industry and food has become an essential aspect of the adventure. In the late nineteenth century, rugged imperialist explorers shot and consumed many of the large African animals, while after the First World War, luxury safaris for the rich became the norm. First as gentlemen explorers, and then as guides on hunting safaris, ‘Great White Hunters’ and their pervasive ideology of muscular Christianity prevailed. The period from the late nineteenth through the first part of the twentieth century is looked back upon as the golden age of the safari. Today, many safari tourists are provided with ‘fine cuisine’, but with accompanying ‘nods’ to the food of this golden age. At the same time, some safari guides provide reenactments of cooking on an open fire in the bush. Safari lodges and camps have had to cater to an increasing diversity of tourists and to manage the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. Online advertisements for Safari companies depict carefully organized meals with views across the African savannah where dangerous encounters with wild animals may be envisaged. The companies often promote subtle and nostalgic invocations of the past providing the tourists with a ‘back in time tourism’. In preparing this article, books on safari cuisine, accounts by safari guides and some individual tourists, and many safari company online websites were studied.
Cookery books that claim to provide national recipes, as well as anthropological accounts of nati... more Cookery books that claim to provide national recipes, as well as anthropological accounts of national cuisines, tend to promote particular ideologies. This paper examines a sample of Latin American cookery books with two such ideologies in mind: domesticity, with the woman firmly located in the home, and nationalism with appeals to the marvellous cuisine of the relevant nation. The books often see women as being fully responsible for food preparation and providing a well-run and comfortable home for the family. They are frequently also dedicated to the author's mother or grandmother. José Sánchez-H's My Mother's Bolivian Kitchen highlights women as the bearers of culinary tradition placing them in the "backward look" of the Janus-face of nationalism. As part of the nationalist process of incorporating different ethnicities, cuisines of different regions may be included. Sonia Montecino Aguirre's Cocinas Mestizas de Chile: La Olla Deleitosa, is focussed on national inclusivity by including the mixture of pre-Colombian and Spanish foodways which contribute to a Chilean Creole national cuisine. National cookery books tend to promote the nation's cuisines in various ways including a focus on traditional national dishes, such as the Paraguayan chipa or the Colombian arepa. Such mentions of national dishes can also be seen, as Michael Billig has argued, as purveyors of "banal nationalism," a quiet, everyday reminding of nationhood.
Os hinos nacionais, tais como as bandeiras, os brasões, os selos e o dinheiro, são elementos simb... more Os hinos nacionais, tais como as bandeiras, os brasões, os selos e o dinheiro, são elementos simbólicos que fazem parte de um equipamento que acompanha as reivindicações de especifi cidade de cada nação. As letras dos hinos dos países pós-coloniais podem ser vistos como documentos ilustrativos, já que refl ectem as ideologias e preocupações da era da indepêndencia. Os temas mais comuns são apelos ao despertar da nação ou elogios às maravilhas ‘únicas’ do território nacional. No entanto, os hinos dos cinco países da África lusófona e Timor-Leste diferem da maioria dos outros estados póscoloniais na medida em que as elites políticas recorreram a poetas e escritores conhecidos e proclamaram a revolução socialista. Enquanto que na maioria dos outros países os hinos iniciais permanecem, no novo mundo lusófono a transformação política do socialismo para o capitalismo foi acompanhada pela substituição-ou planos de substituição-dos hinos. Os discursos de identidade nacional que inicialmente...
The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate a... more The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: High-Volume Sampling System to Measure Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Refueling Infrastructure submitted by Hadyan Sani Ramadhan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2021
Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main facto... more Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main factors: first, the multitude and complexity of African societies and their interactions with the different colonial powers over five centuries, and, second, by an underestimation of the importance of women’s activities by researchers imbued with colonial patriarchal ideologies. In prehistoric and precolonial times, only glimpses of women’s roles in food production and gathering can be seen, drawing on evidence from historical linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and archaeology. What evidence there is suggests that women’s participation in these tasks was important. The written account of Ibn Battutah and the oral epic of Sundiata provide some information about what was eaten and Sundiata does point to women’s major role in growing food and in cooking. During the colonial period, from about 1500 to the 1960s, many accounts from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa stress how women played...
Igor Cusack Introduction. This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and... more Igor Cusack Introduction. This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cookery books, both those published in Africa and elsewhere. It will ask which books written by ethnographers, ‘housewives’, gastronomic journalists, colonial ‘ladies’ or celebrity chefs might generate a salivating performance from the reader and an urge to consume the presented dish. The extent of any such response will largely depend on the cultural milieu of author and reader and their own personal tastes. The writer will have had an imagined narratee in mind which might, for example, be a cook in the ‘Western’ kitchen (in the West or in Africa), or one in an African village, or maybe both.
In his semi-autobiographical novels, Las tinieblas de su memoria negra (Shadows of your black mem... more In his semi-autobiographical novels, Las tinieblas de su memoria negra (Shadows of your black memory) and Los poderes de la tempestad (Power of the storm), the Equatoguinean writer Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo describes a boy's, and then the man's, life in colonial and postcolonial Equatorial Guinea, Spain's only sub-Saharan colony. This paper argues that the numerous descriptions of the food encountered by the protagonist immerse the reader in four different worlds: that of his Fang ethnic group in the Hispanic colony; that of the colonial priests and emancipados of the protagonist's youth; then the horrors encountered under the cruel postcolonial tyrant, Macías Nguema and finally his recollections of life in exile in Spain. A taxonomy on how food and meals are used in fiction is presented in order to evaluate how Ndongo-Bidyogo's use of food in his novels might fit into such a scheme. Finally, it is suggested that food may make a more regular appearance in the semi-autobiographical novel than in other fiction.
This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cook... more This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cookery books, both those published in Africa and elsewhere. It will ask which books written by ethnographers, 'housewives', gastronomic journalists, colonial 'ladies' or celebrity chefs might generate a salivating performance from the reader and an urge to consume the presented dish. The extent of any such response will largely depend on the cultural milieu of author and reader and their own personal tastes. The writer will have had an imagined narratee in mind which might, for example, be a cook in the 'Western' kitchen (in the West or in Africa), or one in an African village, or maybe both. Some recipe collections from the former British colonies in Africa, provided by the colonial 'ladies' themselves, and later books written by those Africans who had been trained in a tradition of postwar British domestic science, bring a rather clinical approach to their recipes, aiming for a nutritious assemblage, which might satisfy the stomach, but maybe not enthuse the palate. In a continent where many go hungry, perhaps simple recipes for producing a nutritious meal from any available food should be the priority. More recently some African chefs emerging from hotels and restaurants may be more focussed on their skilled and self-important work of presenting the dishes, rather than selling their deliciousness, whilst others proclaim their gustatory enthusiasm for every recipe. Photographs and illustrations of prepared food may be an important means of enticing the reader to prepare and/or enjoy the meal. The paper will explore to what extent such illustrations in African cookery books succeed in conveying gustatory enthusiasm. Sometimes, where the photographs themselves are the central feature of the book, the illustrations may curiously suppress any urge to consume the food.
whilst in Guinea – Bissau most of the country was occupied by the PAIGC. I will now look at each ... more whilst in Guinea – Bissau most of the country was occupied by the PAIGC. I will now look at each country in turn before reaching some general conclusions about what was eaten. A sense of what was consumed can only be established by collating occasional snippets from various accounts. As usual, only when the researcher applies a foodsensitive lens to the historical literature does the paucity of information on food become apparent.
complexity and one that changes over time, although the predominant Victorian model of patriarcha... more complexity and one that changes over time, although the predominant Victorian model of patriarchal dominance was clearly difficult to dislodge. In Britain and its empire in Africa, there was a clear British colonial gendered notion of domesticity which interacted with an array of different African versions of domesticity. Mission schools taught domestic science to African girls in both British and Portuguese Africa (see, for example, Sheldon 1998; Tripp 2004). This article does not examine in any detail these interactions, but focuses on how the Western notion of domesticity was perpetuated in colonial Africa. Many of the cookery books from British colonial Africa have sections giving advice and ‘hints’ usually in a section following the recipes: the housewife is drawn into manifold household chores beyond just the cooking. These instructions to the colonial housewife were openly proclaimed, but, as will be suggested here, cookery books, and books of advice to the colonialist’s wife...
... Cuisine' (Ngozi 1998: 184-90). Unusually, Elizabeth A. Jackson in South ... more ... Cuisine' (Ngozi 1998: 184-90). Unusually, Elizabeth A. Jackson in South of the Sahara divides her recipes into sections by ethnic groups such as the Dogon of Mali or the Mossi (1999: 114, 164). Diane M. Spivey (1999) has ...
Oxford Research Encyclopaedias. African History, 2021
Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main facto... more Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main factors: first, the multitude and complexity of African societies and their interactions with the different colonial powers over five centuries, and, second, by an underestimation of the importance of women’s activities by researchers imbued with colonial patriarchal ideologies.
In prehistoric and precolonial times, only glimpses of women’s roles in food production and gathering can be seen, drawing on evidence from historical linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and archaeology. What evidence there is suggests that women’s participation in these tasks was important. The written account of Ibn Battutah and the oral epic of Sundiata provide some information about what was eaten and Sundiata does point to women’s major role in growing food and in cooking.
During the colonial period, from about 1500 to the 1960s, many accounts from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa stress how women played a dominant part in the farming, processing, preparation, and cooking of food. There was a varied and often complex division of labor between men and women. Instead of the more rigid gendered private/public divide often seen in the West, women in Africa have engaged in wider roles in the public sphere, for example, in the processing of food for sale. There are some indications that women’s work was changed by the introduction of new crops from Asia and the Americas. Colonial governments favored men working on cash crops so that women focused even more on the provision of food for the family. Women also showed great adaptability in assessing and using new technologies such as peanut processing machines.
Cooking has remained predominantly a woman’s occupation in sub-Saharan Africa and a divide between a “high” cuisine, mainly in the hands of men outside Africa, and a “low” or humble cuisine, has not developed. Cookery books are very useful sources for evidence of the history of women’s domestic role. Those published for European settler wives in the colonial period were focused on the housewife rooted in the home and this ideology of domesticity can be found in the cookery books of postcolonial Africa. After independence, the ruling elites of African nations set about constructing discourses of national identity, flags and anthems particular to each nation, and women have contributed to this nation-building by assembling national cuisines.
Since the 1980s, an epidemic of obesity has occurred in many African urban areas, with associated chronic disease, which women have suffered more than men. An ideal image of a plumper body, along with the introduction of “fast food,” has contributed to this situation. Women have also been disadvantaged by cultural food taboos in which certain foods are prohibited to them.
This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cook... more This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cookery books, both those published in Africa and elsewhere. It will ask which books written by ethnographers, 'housewives', gastronomic journalists, colonial 'ladies' or celebrity chefs might generate a salivating performance from the reader and an urge to consume the presented dish. The extent of any such response will largely depend on the cultural milieu of author and reader and their own personal tastes. The writer will have had an imagined narratee in mind which might, for example, be a cook in the 'Western' kitchen (in the West or in Africa), or one in an African village, or maybe both. Some recipe collections from the former British colonies in Africa, provided by the colonial 'ladies' themselves, and later books written by those Africans who had been trained in a tradition of postwar British domestic science, bring a rather clinical approach to their recipes, aiming for a nutritious assemblage, which might satisfy the stomach, but maybe not enthuse the palate. In a continent where many go hungry, perhaps simple recipes for producing a nutritious meal from any available food should be the priority. More recently some African chefs emerging from hotels and restaurants may be more focussed on their skilled and self-important work of presenting the dishes, rather than selling their deliciousness, whilst others proclaim their gustatory enthusiasm for every recipe. Photographs and illustrations of prepared food may be an important means of enticing the reader to prepare and/or enjoy the meal. The paper will explore to what extent such illustrations in African cookery books succeed in conveying gustatory enthusiasm. Sometimes, where the photographs themselves are the central feature of the book, the illustrations may curiously suppress any urge to consume the food.
Safari holidays are now a major part of the African tourist industry and food has become an essen... more Safari holidays are now a major part of the African tourist industry and food has become an essential aspect of the adventure. In the late nineteenth century, rugged imperialist explorers shot and consumed many of the large African animals, while after the First World War, luxury safaris for the rich became the norm. First as gentlemen explorers, and then as guides on hunting safaris, ‘Great White Hunters’ and their pervasive ideology of muscular Christianity prevailed. The period from the late nineteenth through the first part of the twentieth century is looked back upon as the golden age of the safari. Today, many safari tourists are provided with ‘fine cuisine’, but with accompanying ‘nods’ to the food of this golden age. At the same time, some safari guides provide reenactments of cooking on an open fire in the bush. Safari lodges and camps have had to cater to an increasing diversity of tourists and to manage the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. Online advertisements for Safari companies depict carefully organized meals with views across the African savannah where dangerous encounters with wild animals may be envisaged. The companies often promote subtle and nostalgic invocations of the past providing the tourists with a ‘back in time tourism’. In preparing this article, books on safari cuisine, accounts by safari guides and some individual tourists, and many safari company online websites were studied.
Cookery books that claim to provide national recipes, as well as anthropological accounts of nati... more Cookery books that claim to provide national recipes, as well as anthropological accounts of national cuisines, tend to promote particular ideologies. This paper examines a sample of Latin American cookery books with two such ideologies in mind: domesticity, with the woman firmly located in the home, and nationalism with appeals to the marvellous cuisine of the relevant nation. The books often see women as being fully responsible for food preparation and providing a well-run and comfortable home for the family. They are frequently also dedicated to the author's mother or grandmother. José Sánchez-H's My Mother's Bolivian Kitchen highlights women as the bearers of culinary tradition placing them in the "backward look" of the Janus-face of nationalism. As part of the nationalist process of incorporating different ethnicities, cuisines of different regions may be included. Sonia Montecino Aguirre's Cocinas Mestizas de Chile: La Olla Deleitosa, is focussed on national inclusivity by including the mixture of pre-Colombian and Spanish foodways which contribute to a Chilean Creole national cuisine. National cookery books tend to promote the nation's cuisines in various ways including a focus on traditional national dishes, such as the Paraguayan chipa or the Colombian arepa. Such mentions of national dishes can also be seen, as Michael Billig has argued, as purveyors of "banal nationalism," a quiet, everyday reminding of nationhood.
Os hinos nacionais, tais como as bandeiras, os brasões, os selos e o dinheiro, são elementos simb... more Os hinos nacionais, tais como as bandeiras, os brasões, os selos e o dinheiro, são elementos simbólicos que fazem parte de um equipamento que acompanha as reivindicações de especifi cidade de cada nação. As letras dos hinos dos países pós-coloniais podem ser vistos como documentos ilustrativos, já que refl ectem as ideologias e preocupações da era da indepêndencia. Os temas mais comuns são apelos ao despertar da nação ou elogios às maravilhas ‘únicas’ do território nacional. No entanto, os hinos dos cinco países da África lusófona e Timor-Leste diferem da maioria dos outros estados póscoloniais na medida em que as elites políticas recorreram a poetas e escritores conhecidos e proclamaram a revolução socialista. Enquanto que na maioria dos outros países os hinos iniciais permanecem, no novo mundo lusófono a transformação política do socialismo para o capitalismo foi acompanhada pela substituição-ou planos de substituição-dos hinos. Os discursos de identidade nacional que inicialmente...
The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate a... more The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: High-Volume Sampling System to Measure Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Refueling Infrastructure submitted by Hadyan Sani Ramadhan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2021
Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main facto... more Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main factors: first, the multitude and complexity of African societies and their interactions with the different colonial powers over five centuries, and, second, by an underestimation of the importance of women’s activities by researchers imbued with colonial patriarchal ideologies. In prehistoric and precolonial times, only glimpses of women’s roles in food production and gathering can be seen, drawing on evidence from historical linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and archaeology. What evidence there is suggests that women’s participation in these tasks was important. The written account of Ibn Battutah and the oral epic of Sundiata provide some information about what was eaten and Sundiata does point to women’s major role in growing food and in cooking. During the colonial period, from about 1500 to the 1960s, many accounts from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa stress how women played...
Igor Cusack Introduction. This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and... more Igor Cusack Introduction. This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cookery books, both those published in Africa and elsewhere. It will ask which books written by ethnographers, ‘housewives’, gastronomic journalists, colonial ‘ladies’ or celebrity chefs might generate a salivating performance from the reader and an urge to consume the presented dish. The extent of any such response will largely depend on the cultural milieu of author and reader and their own personal tastes. The writer will have had an imagined narratee in mind which might, for example, be a cook in the ‘Western’ kitchen (in the West or in Africa), or one in an African village, or maybe both.
In his semi-autobiographical novels, Las tinieblas de su memoria negra (Shadows of your black mem... more In his semi-autobiographical novels, Las tinieblas de su memoria negra (Shadows of your black memory) and Los poderes de la tempestad (Power of the storm), the Equatoguinean writer Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo describes a boy's, and then the man's, life in colonial and postcolonial Equatorial Guinea, Spain's only sub-Saharan colony. This paper argues that the numerous descriptions of the food encountered by the protagonist immerse the reader in four different worlds: that of his Fang ethnic group in the Hispanic colony; that of the colonial priests and emancipados of the protagonist's youth; then the horrors encountered under the cruel postcolonial tyrant, Macías Nguema and finally his recollections of life in exile in Spain. A taxonomy on how food and meals are used in fiction is presented in order to evaluate how Ndongo-Bidyogo's use of food in his novels might fit into such a scheme. Finally, it is suggested that food may make a more regular appearance in the semi-autobiographical novel than in other fiction.
This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cook... more This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cookery books, both those published in Africa and elsewhere. It will ask which books written by ethnographers, 'housewives', gastronomic journalists, colonial 'ladies' or celebrity chefs might generate a salivating performance from the reader and an urge to consume the presented dish. The extent of any such response will largely depend on the cultural milieu of author and reader and their own personal tastes. The writer will have had an imagined narratee in mind which might, for example, be a cook in the 'Western' kitchen (in the West or in Africa), or one in an African village, or maybe both. Some recipe collections from the former British colonies in Africa, provided by the colonial 'ladies' themselves, and later books written by those Africans who had been trained in a tradition of postwar British domestic science, bring a rather clinical approach to their recipes, aiming for a nutritious assemblage, which might satisfy the stomach, but maybe not enthuse the palate. In a continent where many go hungry, perhaps simple recipes for producing a nutritious meal from any available food should be the priority. More recently some African chefs emerging from hotels and restaurants may be more focussed on their skilled and self-important work of presenting the dishes, rather than selling their deliciousness, whilst others proclaim their gustatory enthusiasm for every recipe. Photographs and illustrations of prepared food may be an important means of enticing the reader to prepare and/or enjoy the meal. The paper will explore to what extent such illustrations in African cookery books succeed in conveying gustatory enthusiasm. Sometimes, where the photographs themselves are the central feature of the book, the illustrations may curiously suppress any urge to consume the food.
whilst in Guinea – Bissau most of the country was occupied by the PAIGC. I will now look at each ... more whilst in Guinea – Bissau most of the country was occupied by the PAIGC. I will now look at each country in turn before reaching some general conclusions about what was eaten. A sense of what was consumed can only be established by collating occasional snippets from various accounts. As usual, only when the researcher applies a foodsensitive lens to the historical literature does the paucity of information on food become apparent.
complexity and one that changes over time, although the predominant Victorian model of patriarcha... more complexity and one that changes over time, although the predominant Victorian model of patriarchal dominance was clearly difficult to dislodge. In Britain and its empire in Africa, there was a clear British colonial gendered notion of domesticity which interacted with an array of different African versions of domesticity. Mission schools taught domestic science to African girls in both British and Portuguese Africa (see, for example, Sheldon 1998; Tripp 2004). This article does not examine in any detail these interactions, but focuses on how the Western notion of domesticity was perpetuated in colonial Africa. Many of the cookery books from British colonial Africa have sections giving advice and ‘hints’ usually in a section following the recipes: the housewife is drawn into manifold household chores beyond just the cooking. These instructions to the colonial housewife were openly proclaimed, but, as will be suggested here, cookery books, and books of advice to the colonialist’s wife...
... Cuisine' (Ngozi 1998: 184-90). Unusually, Elizabeth A. Jackson in South ... more ... Cuisine' (Ngozi 1998: 184-90). Unusually, Elizabeth A. Jackson in South of the Sahara divides her recipes into sections by ethnic groups such as the Dogon of Mali or the Mossi (1999: 114, 164). Diane M. Spivey (1999) has ...
Oxford Research Encyclopaedias. African History, 2021
Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main facto... more Any account of women and food history in sub-Saharan Africa must be complicated by two main factors: first, the multitude and complexity of African societies and their interactions with the different colonial powers over five centuries, and, second, by an underestimation of the importance of women’s activities by researchers imbued with colonial patriarchal ideologies.
In prehistoric and precolonial times, only glimpses of women’s roles in food production and gathering can be seen, drawing on evidence from historical linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and archaeology. What evidence there is suggests that women’s participation in these tasks was important. The written account of Ibn Battutah and the oral epic of Sundiata provide some information about what was eaten and Sundiata does point to women’s major role in growing food and in cooking.
During the colonial period, from about 1500 to the 1960s, many accounts from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa stress how women played a dominant part in the farming, processing, preparation, and cooking of food. There was a varied and often complex division of labor between men and women. Instead of the more rigid gendered private/public divide often seen in the West, women in Africa have engaged in wider roles in the public sphere, for example, in the processing of food for sale. There are some indications that women’s work was changed by the introduction of new crops from Asia and the Americas. Colonial governments favored men working on cash crops so that women focused even more on the provision of food for the family. Women also showed great adaptability in assessing and using new technologies such as peanut processing machines.
Cooking has remained predominantly a woman’s occupation in sub-Saharan Africa and a divide between a “high” cuisine, mainly in the hands of men outside Africa, and a “low” or humble cuisine, has not developed. Cookery books are very useful sources for evidence of the history of women’s domestic role. Those published for European settler wives in the colonial period were focused on the housewife rooted in the home and this ideology of domesticity can be found in the cookery books of postcolonial Africa. After independence, the ruling elites of African nations set about constructing discourses of national identity, flags and anthems particular to each nation, and women have contributed to this nation-building by assembling national cuisines.
Since the 1980s, an epidemic of obesity has occurred in many African urban areas, with associated chronic disease, which women have suffered more than men. An ideal image of a plumper body, along with the introduction of “fast food,” has contributed to this situation. Women have also been disadvantaged by cultural food taboos in which certain foods are prohibited to them.
This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cook... more This paper will explore the extent of gustatory enthusiasm conveyed and generated by African cookery books, both those published in Africa and elsewhere. It will ask which books written by ethnographers, 'housewives', gastronomic journalists, colonial 'ladies' or celebrity chefs might generate a salivating performance from the reader and an urge to consume the presented dish. The extent of any such response will largely depend on the cultural milieu of author and reader and their own personal tastes. The writer will have had an imagined narratee in mind which might, for example, be a cook in the 'Western' kitchen (in the West or in Africa), or one in an African village, or maybe both. Some recipe collections from the former British colonies in Africa, provided by the colonial 'ladies' themselves, and later books written by those Africans who had been trained in a tradition of postwar British domestic science, bring a rather clinical approach to their recipes, aiming for a nutritious assemblage, which might satisfy the stomach, but maybe not enthuse the palate. In a continent where many go hungry, perhaps simple recipes for producing a nutritious meal from any available food should be the priority. More recently some African chefs emerging from hotels and restaurants may be more focussed on their skilled and self-important work of presenting the dishes, rather than selling their deliciousness, whilst others proclaim their gustatory enthusiasm for every recipe. Photographs and illustrations of prepared food may be an important means of enticing the reader to prepare and/or enjoy the meal. The paper will explore to what extent such illustrations in African cookery books succeed in conveying gustatory enthusiasm. Sometimes, where the photographs themselves are the central feature of the book, the illustrations may curiously suppress any urge to consume the food.
Uploads
Papers by Igor Cusack
In prehistoric and precolonial times, only glimpses of women’s roles in food production and gathering can be seen, drawing on evidence from historical linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and archaeology. What evidence there is suggests that women’s participation in these tasks was important. The written account of Ibn Battutah and the oral epic of Sundiata provide some information about what was eaten and Sundiata does point to women’s major role in growing food and in cooking.
During the colonial period, from about 1500 to the 1960s, many accounts from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa stress how women played a dominant part in the farming, processing, preparation, and cooking of food. There was a varied and often complex division of labor between men and women. Instead of the more rigid gendered private/public divide often seen in the West, women in Africa have engaged in wider roles in the public sphere, for example, in the processing of food for sale. There are some indications that women’s work was changed by the introduction of new crops from Asia and the Americas. Colonial governments favored men working on cash crops so that women focused even more on the provision of food for the family. Women also showed great adaptability in assessing and using new technologies such as peanut processing machines.
Cooking has remained predominantly a woman’s occupation in sub-Saharan Africa and a divide between a “high” cuisine, mainly in the hands of men outside Africa, and a “low” or humble cuisine, has not developed. Cookery books are very useful sources for evidence of the history of women’s domestic role. Those published for European settler wives in the colonial period were focused on the housewife rooted in the home and this ideology of domesticity can be found in the cookery books of postcolonial Africa. After independence, the ruling elites of African nations set about constructing discourses of national identity, flags and anthems particular to each nation, and women have contributed to this nation-building by assembling national cuisines.
Since the 1980s, an epidemic of obesity has occurred in many African urban areas, with associated chronic disease, which women have suffered more than men. An ideal image of a plumper body, along with the introduction of “fast food,” has contributed to this situation. Women have also been disadvantaged by cultural food taboos in which certain foods are prohibited to them.
In prehistoric and precolonial times, only glimpses of women’s roles in food production and gathering can be seen, drawing on evidence from historical linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and archaeology. What evidence there is suggests that women’s participation in these tasks was important. The written account of Ibn Battutah and the oral epic of Sundiata provide some information about what was eaten and Sundiata does point to women’s major role in growing food and in cooking.
During the colonial period, from about 1500 to the 1960s, many accounts from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa stress how women played a dominant part in the farming, processing, preparation, and cooking of food. There was a varied and often complex division of labor between men and women. Instead of the more rigid gendered private/public divide often seen in the West, women in Africa have engaged in wider roles in the public sphere, for example, in the processing of food for sale. There are some indications that women’s work was changed by the introduction of new crops from Asia and the Americas. Colonial governments favored men working on cash crops so that women focused even more on the provision of food for the family. Women also showed great adaptability in assessing and using new technologies such as peanut processing machines.
Cooking has remained predominantly a woman’s occupation in sub-Saharan Africa and a divide between a “high” cuisine, mainly in the hands of men outside Africa, and a “low” or humble cuisine, has not developed. Cookery books are very useful sources for evidence of the history of women’s domestic role. Those published for European settler wives in the colonial period were focused on the housewife rooted in the home and this ideology of domesticity can be found in the cookery books of postcolonial Africa. After independence, the ruling elites of African nations set about constructing discourses of national identity, flags and anthems particular to each nation, and women have contributed to this nation-building by assembling national cuisines.
Since the 1980s, an epidemic of obesity has occurred in many African urban areas, with associated chronic disease, which women have suffered more than men. An ideal image of a plumper body, along with the introduction of “fast food,” has contributed to this situation. Women have also been disadvantaged by cultural food taboos in which certain foods are prohibited to them.