Cusack, 2000, African Cuisines

African Cuisines: Recipes for Nation-Building? Author(s): Igor Cusack Source: Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Dec., 2000), pp. 207-225 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771831 . Accessed: 02/05/2013 18:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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Journalof African CulturalStudies, Volume13, Number2, December2000, pp. 207-225

4-UFlaN?

African cuisines: recipes for nationbuilding?* IGOR CUSACK Department of Politics and the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, University of Bristol

ABSTRACT Whenever possible, the state, ruling elites and other actors in the postcolonial world have appropriated available cultural material such as literature, music or oral heritage and placed this into a basket labelled 'the national culture.' As part of this process, the emergence of national cuisines has been noted and explored by various writers outside Africa. A 'national cuisine' is often built by appropriating and assembling a variety of regional or ethnic recipes and often reflects long and complex culinary histories as well as domestic ideologies. This article examines how African states and other actors have been involved in such processes. Cookery books collating the national recipes have been published in Africa and the West. Alongside national anthems and flags, cuisine increasingly forms a significant part of the 'national culture' sections shown on official national web-sites. National dishes quietly flag' the nation as examples of 'banal nationalism.' Various actors in the West, and in particular African-Americans, have been complicit in the building of African national cuisines. In Equatorial Guinea, where the first indications of the emergence of a national cuisine can be identified, various bodies in the old colonial power - Spain - have been involved, as well as the ruling e'lite. Questions are raised as to how the emergence of African national cuisines might reflect particular colonial histories and how such contributions to the building of a 'national identity' might promote a gendered concept of the nation.

1. Introduction Thomas Sankara, the former President of Burkina Faso, once wrote, '[S]o, do you not know where imperialism is to be found? ... just look at your plate!' (Barrot 1994: 26).1 Cuisines, whether national, regional, or 'ethnic,' should not be considered as neutral, innocent concoctions. Like most of material culture, they are clearly products of dominant ideologies and related power structures, and this paper suggests that African cuisines are nurtured by such ideologies as imperialism, capitalism and nationalism. Most emerging African national cuisines - and what people actually eat in Africa, not necessarily quite the same - clearly reflect the colonial encounter and the subsequent dependent relationship with the West, as well as indigenous ethnic culinary practices.

* This is a revised and expanded version of a paper first given at the 'Africa - Capturingthe Future:the ROAPEMillenniumConference'at the Universityof Leeds, April 2000. 1 'Vous ne savez pas oii est l'imperialisme?... Regardezdans votreassiette!' ISSN 1369-6815 print; 1469-9346 online/00/020207-19

? 2000 Journal of African Cultural Studies

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Catherine Palmer has pointed out that food, along with landscape and the body, is an aspect of the modern material world that is important to both individual and collective identities (1998: 183). There is no doubt that food, and the way various ingredients are combined and cooked, is an important element of a national cultural identity. In this paper, I want to examine the development of African cuisines in relation to the nationbuilding project. Although conclusions must be tentative, it is suggested that over recent years national cuisines are being established and national dishes are being identified. As illustrated below, a number of actors of varying importance are involved in this building work: states and their ruling 61lites,various government bodies belonging to the old colonial powers, publishers and writers on 'ethnic' cuisines and travel guides based in the United States and Europe, Afro-American writers, African Studies academics, expatriates and settlers, returning members of diasporas, and perhaps even designers of web-pages advising African embassies in the United States. Nationalist ideology is far more omnipresent amongst all the significant actors than is usually recognised. As might be expected, the African consumer may also play a crucial role in deciding what items to include in the national culinary corpus. In considering what to include on national web-sites, governments have to abstract what they believe to be the essential components of their national identities and cultures. These web-sites are therefore good places to start when looking for what the ruling 6lites consider to be the important facets of national culture and how important cuisine is to that culture. Any nation-building project in a complex multi-ethnic state in Africa will be difficult and will resemble the process of assembling a collage made of different materials from diverse sources. A national cuisine is a useful part of building a national culture, a 'prop' in the process, as Benedict Anderson describes it, of imagining the nation (1991: 5-7). As a crucial step in the establishment of national cuisines 'cookery books' or 'cookbooks' (US usage) are being published both in Africa and the West as 'authentic' recipes are assembled, collated and adapted. Appadurai claims that '[c]ookbooks ... belong to the humble literature of complex civilizations ... They reflect the boundaries of edibility ... and the structure of domestic ideologies' (1988: 3). Nationalism is one of these domestic ideologies, being internalized as the dominant ideology of the international system of states. These cookery books come in a great variety of guises, and it is important to ask who is expected to read the book and who is to do the cooking. Is a book for 'an American kitchen' or for an African village, or even both? Clearly those books aimed at the 'American kitchen' are not directly helping to construct a nation in Africa, but they are perhaps reinforcing the globally held view that every nation must have its own cuisine. Recipes and cookery books are also produced with a specific readership or readerships in mind (Barthes 1973: 73-78).2 In this article, I will focus on cookery books. However, it is worth noting that most Africans have not learnt how to cook from written recipes but orally from mothers and grandmothers. African cuisine is largely an oral cuisine. Cookery books assume a literate population, as do recipes published in newspapers. However, radio and television cookery programmes are also important for the illiterate. 3 2 Dishes pictured in the magazine Elle are smoothly coated, ornamented, accompanied by 'mythical economics' and aimed at the 'small-income' reader. The real problems, such as actually obtaining and paying, for example, for a golden partridgedecoratedwith cherries, are ignored.On the otherhand, in L'Express, which has middle-classand more affluentreaders,the cookery 'is real and not magical.' 3 Television programmes showing, for example, the preparation of groundnut stew were broadcastin Nigeria as early as the 1960s.

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I will first look at the notion of 'a nationalcuisine' before examining African cuisines as viewed and promoted in the West and then as developed or not in Lusophone, Anglophone and FrancophoneAfrica. I will present a more detailed study of the first signs of a national cuisine emerging in Equatorial Guinea, as this illustrates well the range of actors implicated in the promotionof national cuisines. Finally, I will ask how these developments of a national cuisine might be implicated in building a gendered concept of the Africannation. In this discussion, the usual problemsrelatedto the very diversity of Africa arise. It is difficult to avoid generalisations that may be inappropriatefor large sections of the continent. I do not set out to investigate thoroughly any particular culinary history, although I do look in some detail at the case of EquatorialGuinea. I do not explore the complexities of 'culinary taboos,' nor examine in detail how particular cuisines are actually practised in the field. Perhaps these national cuisines are just conceits of a westernised 6lite supportedby the internationalsystem of states, and of little importance when one comes to consider what is actually eaten. But if so, this is not crucial to the argumentpresentedhere, as it is the constructededifice of the nationalcuisine, whatever it is, that contributesto the nation-buildingproject. The paper's aims are modest: to ask some questions about whether and how national cuisines in Africa have emerged, or are emerging,and aboutwho is nurturingtheirdevelopment. 2. National cuisines

In the developed world it is taken for granted that every nation has its own cuisine. Stephen Mennell has even claimed that 'the emergence of recognisably "national" cuisines coincided with the formation of nation-states in the fifteenth century,' while Reay Tannahillarguesthat 'culturallydefined food choices and patternsof eating came to be seen as "characteristic"of a people and country' (Palmer 1998: 187). Philippe Couderchas recently writtenof 'the dishes that have made France' (1995), and it is clear that cuisine is a significantfactor in the maintenanceof a French nationalidentity. Each nation has its own cuisine, although the globalisation of culinary culture has added complexity to the relationshipbetween food and nation (Cook and Crang 1996: 131-54). Thus the roastbeef of old Englandis being replacedby chicken tikkamasala. Palmer (1998) also shows how foods may contributetowardsthe quiet flagging of the nation. Food may function as an example of what Michael Billig has called 'banal nationalism':everyday, unnoticednationalism.Billig uses the term 'banalnationalism'to explain how 'the establishednations of the West are reproduced... nationalism,far from being an intermittentmood in established nations is an endemic condition' (Billig 1995: 6-8). In all sorts of minor ways, people are 'remindedof their nationalplace in the world of nations' (ibid: 8). Billig's analysis is concerned with the 'establishednations' such as Britain and the Unites States, and perhapshe underplaysthe extent of overt nationalism in Britain. However, this 'banal' flagging of the nation also appears in the recently established nations. How does banal nationalismbecome involved in national cuisines? The developmentof a nationalcuisine will involve the summoningof a variety of dishes into the ambit of the discourse of the nation, and the very mention then of some national dish will quietly flag the nation. Thus, for example, the serving of Doro Wat, a dish of stewed chicken garnishedwith hard-boiledeggs, one of the national dishes of Ethiopia, will gently remindthe Ethiopiandiner of the nation - assuming, of course, that he or she is awareof this particulardiscourseof nationhood. Any national cuisine will have complex and multiple origins. Jeffrey M. Pilcher, discussing the emergence of Mexican national cuisine, has shown how a complex

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culinaryhistory has contributedto a range of Mexican nationalidentitieswhere the 'most common culinary metaphorfor the Mexican nation was mole poblano' (turkeyin deepbrown sauce) and how various 'struggles of class, gender, ethnicity, and region [have] helped forge this national [culinary] culture' (1996: 193). Arjun Appaduraihas also argued that contemporaryIndian national cuisine fostered by the production of recipe books by middle-classIndianwomen has blurredboth ethnic and caste boundaries(1988: 3-24). It is clear thatsimilarcomplex culinaryhistoriescould be mappedin Africa. 3. African cuisines and what Africans eat

Culinaryhistory is complex and evolving, and it is likely that any contemporaryAfrican cuisine will have been built on pre-colonial, colonial and these more recent globalising influences. Hundreds of different plants and many animals were and are gathered by Bantu groups for consumption in the Equatorialrain forests (Vansina 1990: 89), and many of these will eventually contributeto a nationalcuisine. Many food items in Africa have origins in Asia and in the Americas, with some of those from the East appearing long before the colonial encounter - the banana and plantain, of South East Asian or Indian origins, are thought to have appeared and spread through Africa in the first millennium AD (ibid: 89). The Portuguese brought a great variety of food items both from the New World and Asia after their appearanceon the coasts of Africa in the 15th century,including the groundnutfrom Brazil, now so common a featurein West African cooking. Cornmeal,again a basic partof Africancuisine, was a New World product.Any culinary history of Africa will necessarily reflect these complex origins, although the colonial imprint would be expected to be importanteven if the only residual influence were to be the boundaryof the colonial state within which the traditionalethnic dishes are collated. The colonial legacy has clearly been a major contributorto contemporaryAfrican cuisines. For instance, rice is an essential partof Senegalese cuisine, and Senegal is now a major importer of rice from Indochina. Why? From about 1870, the French began growing ground nuts, so that by the 1930s over half of the agriculturalland in Senegal was allocated to this crop. Meanwhile, in Indochinathe French were producingrice, so that importing rice to Africa made sense. As a result, the government of independent Senegal is burdened with an enormous rice import bill and wants to boost the consumptionof local grains such as millet and sorghum.However, rice is easy to cook, while the local grains need more complex preparation(Seye et al. 1994: 93-94). The colonial culinaryinheritancehas been crucialhere. The colonial legacy has also resulted in Africans being enthusiastic consumers of bread. Indeed, Okello Oculi writes of '...the wheat invasion and promotion of African stomachs into colonised silos for bread made from American wheat' (Oculi 2000: 60). However, to importwheat to centralAfrica is very expensive. Acting on the advice of the 'InternationalCentrefor Potatoes' based in Peru, breadmade with one thirdsweet potato and wheat has been producedin Burundi.As Burundiis one of the biggest producersof sweet potato in Africa, this presentsa considerablesavings in importbills. In Casamance (Senegal), some maize tortillasbased on Mexican experience have been introducedwith considerablesuccess (Barrotand Hakizimana1994: 114;Lepaideuret al. 1994: 118). Since the independence of the African states, the West has remained a dominant influence. When the EU had a major surplus of milk, cheap milk powder was sent to Africa. This resulted in the setting up of a numberof factories where this powder was turnedback into milk, with disastrousconsequencesfor indigenousmilk producersin the Sahel. This is put more colourfullyby Oculi when he points out that 'Germancompanies

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would, by the 1980s, dry up the milk in udders in Nigerian nomadic cattle by flooding Nigerian urbanthroatswith chemical Germanmilk' (Oculi 2000: 55). Vast quantitiesof the poorercuts of beef were also sent by the EU, this time resultingin the collapse of beef exports from the Sahel countriesto places like Cote d'Ivoire. The rapidgrowthof African towns and cities has also profoundlychangedthe eating habits of many Africans, and it is here that imports such as rice and EU surpluses will be concentrated.Like ideas, food travels very quickly. Thus foods and recipes are able to move rapidly from one African state to another:troubles in Gabon in the early 1990s resulted in a move away from rice to the importationfrom Cameroonof one its 'nationaldishes,' foufou, made from manioc flour (Ndoutoum and Zongo 1994: 36-39). More recently and on a smaller scale, alloco, fried plantain cubes, that were first sold in Cote d'Ivoire in the allocodrome in Abidjan have now spreadto many partsof FrancophoneAfrica (ibid: 35-37). Many attempts by Western governments and NGOs to introduce more nutritious combinations of cereals and new food items have ended in failure, often in farce, and have often greatly distorted existing indigenous food productiondue to low cost of the subsidised surpluses or rejection by African societies. However, some interesting examples of Latin and CentralAmericanexperience in food provision in the tropics have transferredwell to Africa, such as the sweet potato breaddiscussed above. Cow's milk is a difficult product to preserve in the tropics, and in addition, local cattle in the Sahel region have poor yields and are scattered over vast areas. As mentioned above, reconstitutedpowdered surplus milk from the EU has been the major source of milk in many African cities. However, Brazil has had a very successful programmeof producing and supplying soya milk and has successfully reduced malnutritionin some children. In Nigeria, an Indian entrepreneurhas introducedsoya milk sold in sachets into Lagos with success, and now other factoriesproducesoya milk in Burundiand C6te d'Ivoire (Kiabou et al. 1994: 68-70). If a nationalcuisine is just a symbol of nationalidentity, like a nationalanthemor flag, then all it requires is collating and labelling as such. Who might label it for a start? Clearly when 'HippocreneInternationalCookbooks' publishA Taste of Eritrea: Recipes from one of Africa's Most Interesting Little Countries, then an Eritrean cuisine has been

defined, labelled and collated, at least for North American purchasersof cookery books and for those carryingout internetsearches on African cuisine (Warren2000). However, it is not just Western cooks who recognise an Eritreancuisine. The Government of Eritrea'sofficial web-pages, currentlyunderconstruction,contain a small section headed 'EritreanCuisine' (Eritrea:official web-site: 3-4). As in most African countries, those foods eaten by the urbanrich, including items such as spaghetti and rice, differ to those eaten in rural areas where cereals such as taff, maize, sorghumand millet predominate.4 Eritreais an excellent choice for the assemblingof a nationalcuisine, as 'Eritrea'scuisine includes fruits and vegetables brought by the Italians, chilli peppers from the Turks, European-stylebeer from the British, a traditionalbean stew from the Egyptians, and many staples from Ethiopian cuisine,' all of which seems rich material from which to build a nationalcuisine (ws: Foodbooks:3).5 This is excellent material for packaging an Eritreancuisine into a Western cookery book and for allowing the Eritreannational entrepreneursto add anothersection to their presentationsof Eritreanculture.Anotherfactor may be at work here, althoughit may be 4 This is similarto a point madeby the Somaliauthor,NuruddinFarah,who has one of his characterswriting,'[Y]oucan sit in Mogadiscioof comforts,eat a mountainful of spaghetti while my peers in the Ogadenstarveto death ...' (1986: 19).

5 'ws':see web-sitereferences listedbelow.

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complicated in this instance because of the recent secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia. Many membersof Africandiasporasliving in the big cities of the West will frequentor at least know of restaurantsserving dishes from their national cuisine. Here, that national cuisine is neatly confined and summarisedwithin a printed menu. Ethiopian and some Eritreanrestaurantscan be found in many cities. For example, in Harlemin New York, 'a taste of Ethiopia' can be found at the confusingly named AsmaraRestaurant,and a visit might also be made to the MassawaEthiopianand EritreanRestaurant.Otherrestaurants specialise in Senegalese dishes, in food from Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Sierra-Leone(ws: Dining in Harlem).A comprehensivelist of sixty-five pages of African Restaurantsis available on line (ws: African Restaurants).Any member of an African diasporareturninghome to one of these countrieshaving spent some time in Harlem, or in London or Paris, will be very much aware that African countriesare supposedto have their own cuisine and may have had their own cuisine redefinedby these restaurantsin foreign lands. A visitor to Berne in Switzerland,for example, would be able to visit the Ekaborestaurantand on certainnights have a Nigerianor a Kenyanor a Congolese buffet (ws: Ekabo). With some quarterof a million African professionals living out of Africa (Saul and Leys 1999: 26), a fair proportion of the intelligentsia, the scope for such influence is great. In addition,in most African capitals and big towns it is possible to eat at a range of restaurantspresenting a range of national cuisines: Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, and Indian restaurants stand alongside English and Irish pubs. All this will reinforcethe notionthatall nationshave nationalcuisines. 4. African cookery books for the Western Kitchen.

In the US, Europe and elsewhere, there is clearly a considerableand growing interest in African cooking, and a great number of cookery books can be found with a range of recipes taken and adapted from all over Africa. For example, in the UK a popular ChannelFour television programmespawned a book entitled A Taste of Africa (Hafner 1993).6This book is clearly aimed at the Western cook in the Western kitchen. Here a Ghanaian, Dorinda Hafner, presents recipes which include many from parts of the Americas:Brazil, Jamaica,Cuba, New Orleans,Trinidadand Tobago and Martiniqueand Guadeloupe, as well as from ten African countries. This inclusion of the New World mimics a long-standinginterestin 'Africancooking' by African-Americans.For instance, the Food Heritage Press web-site lists 'African-AmericanCookbooks to Feed the Soul,' and alongside many titles such as Mama Dip's Kitchen and The African-American

Heritage Cookbookare books of purely African Continentalcooking such as TheAfrican Cookbook: Menus and Recipes from Eleven African Countries and the Island of Zanzibar

and Tastes of North Africa (Council 1999; Quick Tillery 1996; Sandler 1997). Harva Hachten's Best of Regional African Cooking, originally published in 1970, was one of the

first African cookbooks designed for 'the Americankitchen' and, along with a few other books such as Tebereh Inquai's A Taste of Africa (1998), does not include New World recipes. Otherbooks aimed at the Westernkitchen include recipes gatheredfrom certain African regions such as West Africa (Jackson 1999). Books on African cuisine for the Westernkitchenhave also been publishedin Australia(Hultman1986). In France, in recent years, similar collections of African recipes have been published (Villers and Delaroziere 1995; Chalendar 1993; Ben Yahmed 1999). Again, some of 6

A recent research project funded by the Department of International Development (DflD) had shown how cookery programmes, unlike much other TV coverage, present 'positive images' of the Developing World. See ws: DfID news; summary document, p. 13.

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these include African-American recipes and, for example, recipes from Brazil and Martinique are presented in the special edition of Revue Noire (1996/97) on African cuisine. The French are less squeamishthan their Anglo-Saxon counterpartsand include recipes for animals such as monkeys, although it is not made clear, for example, where dried monkey or indeed a 'bon Marcassin' can be obtainedin Franceby one wishing to presenta dish of Singe au Kdka(Villers and Delarozieres 1995: 176). In Spain, a number of cookery books on African cuisine have also appearedboth in Spanish or Castellano (Ola Puye et al. 1998; Departamentode la Mujer 1997) and in Catalan(Agboton 1989). Thus we have a range of cookery books published in the West, mainly aimed at the cook in a Western kitchen. They either look at Africa as a whole, or at regions such as West or East Africa, although recipes are usually allocated to a specific country such as 'Zambiangroundnutsoup' (Hatchen 1997: 212-13) or placed in country-specificsections such as 'MadagascarCuisine' (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 recently produced a curious cookbook/culinaryhistory looking at 'the global migrationof African cuisine.' This is a very detailed work which attempts to establish the influence of African cooking on, for example, Indian (Tamil/Dravidian),Kampuchean,Mexican (Olmec), or even French cooking. However, the absence of footnotes (althoughthere is an enormousbibliography)means claims such as America's having been discovered by Africans long before Columbus, or peanuts having originatedoutside the Americas,fail to convince. William Beinartpresentsa more balanced view when he points out that ' ... Africa was perhaps not blessed with the most promising domesticable food plants or animals ... [and] ... notable in the [African]

growing crop repertoirewere American domesticates such as maize, cassava or manioc, tomatoes, many beans, chili, potato, tobacco, cocoa, prickly pear, agave and avocado' (Beinart2000: 286). Country-specific books such as the Eritrean example mentioned above are also published in the West, although most of these books cover North African or South African cooking. A Tanzaniancookery book written by workers on an AIDS prevention programme has been published in the United States (Greene and Hunter: 1995). This contains some 238 recipes which were collected from 'the country's finest hotels and restaurants'and 'has become very popularin Tanzania.'7A Peace Corps volunteer who had worked in Gabon has also organised or written The Congo Cookbook,available on the internet(ws: Congo Cookbook).A shortbook on Ghanaiancookery has also recently been published in the UK, and at least one other in the United States (Fuller 1998; Otoo 1997). Laura Edet has assembled some five hundred recipes for her Classic Nigerian Cookbook published in the UK (Edet 1996). We are told in the first lines of the introduction that 'through centuries of conquering armies and internecine conflicts, Nigeria has retaineda distinct and sophisticatedidentity with her own culture, language, folklore and above all, cuisine.' However the author does acknowledge that the assembled recipes come from many of the ethnic groups of Nigeria, thus recognising the diverse origins of Nigerian cooking (ibid: 8-9). These books are generally aimed at the Westerncook, but perhapsalso at Africannationalsliving in the West.

7

See MSU Tuesday Bulletin (3), 01/39/1996 as on http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/ Newsletters/tues 13096.html

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5. African National Cuisines.

What, then, is the position in Africa itself? Is there evidence, for example, of a national cuisine developing in Namibia, one of Africa's other recent independentstates? Does a characteristicNamibian cuisine exist in the country, and has it been recognised or even labelled as such? The only Namibian cookery book identified so far is Das Siidwester Kochbuch, a collection of recipes in German.Walter Hendricks, a chef/lecturerat the Polytechnicof Namibiahas confirmedthat unfortunatelythere is no other book published on Namibian cuisine and that he personally uses a web-site based at the University of Pennsylvania.8Here 'the academy' itself is implicated in the collation of a national cuisine. There is a considerable German influence in the cuisine of Namibia, and travellersare told that 'Schwartzwald-Tortewith whippedcream ... runs deep throughout this nation's culinaryhighways and byways' (Camerapix1994: 302). In addition,all local beers adhere to the German purity laws laid down in 1516 by Duke William IV of Bavaria, and samples of 'Windhoek Lager' are sent several times a year to the Beer institutein Munichto ensurethat standardsare met (ibid: 303). The ingredientsexist for a unique African cuisine, but apparentlyit has yet to be claimed as such by the vigorous builders of the nation who are promoting other elements of Namibian national identity such as 'reconciliation'and an annualCelebrationof HeroesDay (Fosse 1997: 427-50). This is not the case for Cape Verde. Books which discuss Cape Verdean culture include, for example, music and literature,but also cuisine. Recipes are published in newspapers and some Crioulo cookbooks are available (Lobban 1995; Romano 1970). The Cape Verdean embassy in the United States hosts the Cape Verdean national website, and under the heading 'CulturalAspects: Cuisine' we are told that 'Cape Verdians express their uniqueness in their cuisine. Immediatelywe think of the catchupa, cooked for lunch and stewed next day.' Catchupa,a mash of beans and maize, often with sausage and meat, is the nationaldish, often eaten at breakfast.Thus any mentionof catchupawill quietly 'flag' the nation. Other actors involved in the promotion of a Cape Verdean cuisine include the old colonial power, Portugal, which produces a web-site on Lusophone gastronomy - Os Sabores Lus6fonos. This gives example of recipes from Portugal's former African colonies, as well as East Timor and Brazil (ws: Sabores Lus6fonos). Maria Odette Cortes Valente (1989), in perhaps a final neocolonialist flourish,claims that all Lusophonecooking in Africa, Brazil, Goa, Macao and East Timor was the discovery of the Portuguese.Perhapsbecause of this continued concern by the old imperialpower, LusophoneAfricancountriesclearly consider a nationalcuisine as an important part of the national culture. The Angolan government web-site, under the heading, 'Art and Culture',includes 'the cuisine of Angola'. Here a numberof recipes are presented,including what is probablythe nationaldish of Angola, chicken muamba(ws: Angola). Onions, tomatoes and garlic have perhaps infiltratedinto Angolan and other Lusophone cooking from the old metropole and the Mediterranean.For instance, river fish with onions and tomato (peixinios de cebola e tomate) is a typical dish of Sdo Tom6 and Principe,with the palm oil addingthe Africanflavour(CortesValente 1989: 53). The cuisine of Anglophone Africa certainly reflects the colonial heritage of British cooking. Alongside Nigerian recipes for efo (vegetable soup) and obe ata (peppersoup) appearScotch eggs and sausage rolls (ws: MotherlandNigeria/Recipes: 1-21). NyamaNa Irio, in Kenya, according to the 'African Studies' cookbook, is preparedby blending instantmashed potato, tinned peas and kernel corn, and forming this into a smooth green 8 Personalcommunication, book on seafoodhas also 14 March2000. A Namibian-published fortheLisbonWorldExhibition. beenproduced reportedly

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volcano shape on a plate and filling the craterwith steak served in a sauce of tinned onion soup (ws: Kenya: African Studies: 4-5). The Tanzania Cookbook begins with how to make tea and includes such items as bread and jam fritters. Here, however, is a comprehensive cookery book that is addressed to an African audience, including new cooks, 'mothers and health workers' (Pendaeli-Sarakikya1978: 4, 145). It also provides advice on substituteingredientsthat has become necessary, so we are told, because of the rise in the cost of living in Tanzania(ibid: vii). European settlers have also been involved in assembling cookery books. A Zimbabwean Cookery Book was clearly once A Rhodesian Cookery Book, as there is not

quite enough room for the insertion of 'Zimbabwean' for 'Rhodesian' in the text of a recent edition, which otherwise remains the same as in 1967. 'Haddock fish Pie' and 'Welsh Rarebit' and most of the other recipes are 1950s British ones - with a few South African additions - despite a claim to a 'distinct Zimbabwean flavour.' However, the recipes are to be shared with 'the women of the country' and the ingredients, so it is claimed, 'can be found in any home or purchased in any grocery shop in Zimbabwe' (Hayward 1967: Foreword). The Kenya Cookery Book and Household Guide, written by

members of St. Andrew's Church Women's Guild, Nairobi, claims to be the oldest Kenyan cookery book and was first publishedin 1928: it is still recommended'for every Kenyan kitchen' and contains innumerable recipes for biscuits, cakes and puddings (1994: back cover). The contributors to Karibu, Welcome to the Cooking of Kenya are a

more multicultural group: Kenyans, Indians, Pakistanis, Kenyan-bornEuropeans, and various expatriates. The cooks who are expected to use these recipes are probably the same expatriatesand the Kenyan61ite;the eclectic mixtureof recipes includes 'Christmas pudding' and 'minted peas' as well as 'a blend of Asian and African food' and Japanese dishes (Gardner1992). In Anglophone Africa a considerablenumberof cookery books have been published: in Malawi, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, and especially in Kenya.9 Once recipes from a particularnation have been packagedtogetherunderthe heading 'Nigerian' or 'Kenyan,' then a starthas been made to defining a nationalcuisine, at least among the literateelites who may purchasethem. What about FrancophoneAfrica? Apart from North African cuisines, which are well representedin both cookery books and restaurantsin France and North America,there is less evidence of attempts to build national cuisines in sub-SaharanFrancophoneAfrica than in, say, LusophoneAfrica. It is possible that the very strengthof the idea of French cuisine and the assimilationof African 6lites into Frenchculturehas stifled any desires to build independent national cuisines. The publication of books on African cuisine in France is very recent when compared with the United States, although one book on African gastronomydid appearin 1930 (Isnard).FrancophoneAfrican nationalweb-sites have other concerns: in Mauritania,for example, poetry, music, 'intellectualknowledge' and architecture are listed under cultural heritage, with no mention of cuisine (ws: Mauritania:3). Le Grand Livre de la Cuisine Camerounaise is a comprehensive survey of ingredients

and recipes used by the different ethnic groups and the regions of Cameroon.The book has a certainethnographic,scientific approachwhich, for example, gives botanicaldetails for the plants and animals used in Latin, French and local languages. The recipes are certainly not for the 'Americankitchen' and include very basic methods of cooking such items as plantainsor manioc but also, for example, a numberof recipes for dog - and we are told cat is cooked in the same way (Grimaldiand Bikia 1985: 124-29). It is not clear 9

A numberof these have been includedin the referencesbelow.

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who might actually use the recipes in this book. Its publicationwas supportedby French aid in the same way as the Spanish aid agency was involved in a similarbook produced for EquatorialGuinea,discussedbelow. Senegal has a numberof nationaldishes including le thidboudiene(rice and fish) and Poulet Yassa, from the Casamanceregion. Cote d'Ivoire has poulet kUdjinoucooked in a special large earthenwarepots known as canari (Villers and Delaroziere 1995: 159). Smoked beef feet - pattes de boeuffumees - has become a characteristic product from

Ouagadougouin BurkinaFaso and is exportedto many of the neighbouringcountries.It is used for making a beef consommefor breakfast,eaten with bread,which is supposedto 'fix you up' if you have drunk too much beer (Ndoutoum and Zongo 1994: 38). 'Air Madagascar'proclaims that Koba, a mixture of rice, bananaand peanut, is the national snack of Madagascar and suggests you 'prepare a mouthwatering Madagascar meal [Akoyosy voanio] in the convenience of your own home' (ws: Air Madagascar).Despite the emergence of these national dishes, there seems little evidence of summoning of national cuisines to the nation-buildingproject by the state over most of Francophone Africa. The main driving force for the creationof nationalcuisines in Africa appearsto come from the West, and in particularfrom African-Americans.There is considerableinterest in African cuisine often treating the continent as a whole or in regions, a Pan-African cuisine. In partsof Lusophoneand AnglophoneAfrica, as well as generallyNorth Africa from Ethiopiato Morocco, and perhapsin Senegal, a nationalcuisine is well recognised as being partof the nationalculture.As certaindishes become 'nationaldishes,' the very mentionof these will reinforceany sense of nationalidentity. In the next section the development of an Equatoguineancuisine will be discussed illustrating,in particular,the emergence of a new 'nationalcuisine' and also the range of actorswho are complicitin the processof constructionof such nationalcuisines. 6. Equatorial Guinea. A newly emerging national cuisine?

Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking state in sub-Saharan Africa. Since independence from Spain in 1968, this multi-ethnic state has been ruled by two 'Nguemist' dictators.Francisco Macias Nguema, one of the few tyrantsof post-colonial Africa, was installed after free elections in 1968 and was then overthrownand executed in 1979 by his nephew,TeodoroObiangNguema,who remainsin powertoday. The importance of food to a person's identity is well illustrated by one vital componentof Spanish colonial rule: the system of emancipation.A 'native' or indigina had to be a Christianto become an emancipadoand would then be excluded, for example, from having to do compulsory work in the cacao plantations. It was easy for the Patronato, the Church-dominatedbody which controlled 'native affairs,' to exclude anybody who might cause trouble. Once an individualobtaineda carta de emancipacidn he (always he) was allowed to set himself up like a European.He became an honorary Spaniard, pure enough to partake of the bread and wine of the Catholic faith. The emancipado was also allowed to buy and consume olive oil and breadand take alcoholic drinksin the same bars as the whites (Ndongo Bidyogo 1977: 57). Food and drinkwere an importantpart of the coloniser's identity and when the colonised were admitted as honorary Europeans they were deemed pure enough to partake of the same imported food. So, has an effort been made to establish an Equatoguinean cuisine in the years following independence?CertainlyMari Cruz Nchama Evuna, an administrativeattach6 at the EquatoguineanEmbassyin Washington,is adamantthat 'we have our own cuisine,

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African cuisines REPUBLIC OF EQUATORIAL GUINEA

- PAZ- JUSTICIA UNIDAD [Graphic:]

REPUBLICADE GUINEA ECUATORIAL

Cultureand Environment Cultura y

National Cuisine Equatorial Guinea's Popular Dishes

Naturaleza

Equatorial Guinea's national cuisine is simple and tasty. Most popularmeals center aroundmeat or fish in a spiced stew. The ingredientsand spices for these dishes are generallyfound in the forests and seas of

Home EquatorialGuinea Quick Facts Datos Basicos

Equatorial Guinea.

*

Two of the most popular dishes in the country

Social

are a chicken dish preparedin a peanutbutter or creamsauce and served with rice or boiled

Development DesarrolloSocial

plantain, and meat or fish grilled with crushed pumpkin seeds and wrapped in huge leaves.

*

News

Some otherpopulardishes that are less complicated and highly nutritious are

Informaci6n

Culture& Environment

"djomba"(a Combe dish), "mendjaa"(a Fang dish), "boca?,""bangasoup"and "bitalifsoup" (a Bubi dish). A dish thatis enjoyedby all

Culturay Naturaleza

ethnic groups is "pepe soup," which is made of

meat or fish boiled with hot peppers,salt, "osang"(Africantea), fresh tomatoesand "messep"(small tropicalleaves thatadd flavor).

Opportunities Oportunidades Contact Us Contactanos Tourism Turismo Who's Who? Quidnes Quien?

*

At the local market,one can find a splendid varietyof meat, includingantelope,deer and wild boar. Such exotic meats as porcupine and sea tortoise known as "chucku-chucku") are considereddelicacies. These animalsare far largerin EquatorialGuineathanthose found in Europeand on othercontinents. Monkeys and apes were formerlypopular delicacies in EquatorialGuinea,but due to theirrapidextinction,the government-- in cooperationwith internationalNGOs -- is carryingout programsthatwill help the nation maintaintheirpopulations.Snails are also a favoritedish of many locals and visitors alike. Like porcupineand sea tortoise,snails in Equatorial Guinea are unusually large. They

are generally servedin "okro"soup with vegetables and mild spices. FIGURE1

(reconstitutedwithoutgraphicsfor clarityof reproduction) not a Spanish one.'10 Nchama Evuna is the daughter of Alejandro Evuna Owono Asangano, who is part of the ruling clique in Equatorial Guinea, the Clan de Mongomo (Liniger-Goumaz 1993: 217). In the official Republic of Equatorial Guinea web-site, based at the embassy in Washington, one of the most detailed sections is entitled 'National Cuisine,' providing details of 'Equatorial Guinea's Popular Dishes' (ws: Equatorial Guinea; see Figure 1). We are told that 'Equatorial Guinea's national cuisine is simple and tasty' and that, for example, 'a dish that is enjoyed by all ethnic groups is "pepe soup" ...' Lists of the favourite meals of the different ethnic groups are also included: djomba, a Combe dish; mendjaa, a Fang dish; and bitalif soup, a Bubi one.

10 Telephone conversation with the author, 30 August 1996.

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Here the national 61iteare assembling the favourite foods of differentethnic groups and repackagingthem as partof the Equatoguineannationalcuisine. What about educational material or cookery books in the independent state? The Enciclopedia Guinea Ecuatorial, is a book preparedfor use in schools in Equatorial Guinea by Catholic religious orders in Spain but with major contributions from Equatoguineanauthors. Here, lists are provided showing the country's main cooking ingredients, including, for example, plantains, sweet potato, bread fruit, yam, malanga, ground-nutsand snails (SainchezBujin and Lopoha Obiamo 1993: 358). There are two different plants called malanga, the malanga cubana and the malanga bubi: for both

plants, the tubers and the leaves can be eaten and they form an important part of Equatoguineancuisine (Colectivo Helio 1997: 35). The presence of the malanga cubana on the island of Bioko shows the Cubaninfluencewhich can be tracedclearly back to the settlement of freed slaves and political prisoners from Cuba in the mid 19th century. Inclusion of this 'regional' ingredientfrom the island of Bioko in the nationalcuisine of EquatorialGuinea appropriatesit for the nation.A numberof recipes are also includedin the Enciclopedia - one, for example, for sopa de pescado con cacahuete, a ground nut

soup with fish, onions and tomato, typical of West Africa (Sanchez Bujainand Lopoha Obiamo 1993: 366). Many more detailed recipes are given in a publication supported by the Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs called La alimentaci6n y la cocina en Guinea

Ecuatorial (The provision of food and cooking in EquatorialGuinea). Here the emphasis is on traditionalcooking and methods of hunting and fishing, with antelopes, anteaters, monkeys and various fish and birds included (SainchezZarzosa and Domingo Bodel6n 1991). This book was based on a short course held in a hospital at Evinayong, in the 'Continental'part of the country"lin 1985, but included recipes from other parts of the state. In the introduction,the authors affirm that '[e]very village, every region, every countryhas its own characteristicway of procuringfood and drinkand of feeding itself, and which forms a definingpartof its culture' (ibid: 13).12The book is clearly aimed at a readershipin the villages and towns of the EquatorialGuinea as it explains, for example, how to cook food wrappedin leaves over an open fire or in a cooking pot filled with sand. Perhapscurious recipes such as that for Lomandoha,containingyoung malanga leaves, fish and homemade chocolate will one day become a national dish (ibid: 33-34). By collecting the traditional recipes in a book entitled La alimentaci6n y la cocina en Guinea

Ecuatorial, the authorshave appropriatedthem for the nation, and anyone using the book will be remindedof their membershipin that nation. Juan Chema Mijero, the directorof the nationallibraryof EquatorialGuinea from 1962 to 1982 has writtena poem called El Caracol ('The Snail') containingsome of these AfricanandEquatoguineaningredients: Littlesnail,littlesnail Caracolito,caracolito ensediamed6nde esta tu madre y d6nde estd tupadre si no quieres que te coma con hojas de malanga y aceite

tell me where your motheris

andyourfathertoo if you do not want

to be eaten with leaves of malanga

and oil.

(ChemaMijera,1984:65)

Guineaconsistsof two islands,Bioko(formerFernandoPoo) andAnnobon,along 11 Equatorial on thecontinentof Africa. withRioMuni,a rectangular territory 12 'Cada pueblo, cada regi6n, cada pais, tiene una forma propia y caracteristica de procurarse los alimentosy de alimentarse,lo cudl constituyeuna parte definitoriade su cultura.'

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Even though visitors to Equatorial Guinea are more likely to eat in a Spanish or Lebanese restaurant, they are also able to obtain the food de Pais, that is, 'of the country.' Various recipes for both Spanish and Equatoguinean regional or ethnic group dishes have recently been published in a magazine published in Malabo (the capital of Equatorial Guinea) called El Patio. There is no regular press in Equatorial Guinea, so El Patio, published by the Centro Cultural Hispano-Guineano, and directly funded by the Spanish Overseas Aid Agency (AECI), is the most widely read printed matter in the country.13 With a print run of 2500, and with each copy being widely circulated, El Patio is likely to be read by a large proportion of the literate Equatoguinean population.14 In a recent edition, alongside a recipe (under the heading Cocina Espahiola) for gazpacho andaluz is one for mbombi muadjakasi, fish cooked with lemon and pepper in banana leaves ( El Patio, Oct. 1999: 63). The reader can use an oven or a fire, and it can be surmised that the cook envisaged here is not just a member of the westernised 61litebut an ordinary member of the Equatoguinean public. From this brief review of Equatoguinean cuisine it can be seen that the Spanish government, both the Aid Agency and the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs, and Spanish religious orders as well as the Equatoguinean ruling 61lite have so far been implicated in the building of a national cuisine. 7. Gendered recipes for building the nation? Nira Yuval Davies points out how 'constructions of nationhood involve specific notions of both "manhood" and "womanhood" ' (1997:1). There are a number of ways in which nationalist projects can be gendered. Nation-building based on emphasising a common cultural heritage may be differently gendered, for example, than a process built on ideas of shared citizenship. In addition, the gendered nature of nationhood will vary as societies evolve and change. Some theorists of nationalism, the 'primordialists,' certainly see nations as extensions of kinship relations. Others, like Etienne Balibar, write of the nation being a retrospective 'fictive ethnicity' and argue that there is a need for a principle of exclusion or closure which cannot be provided, for example, by a language community, but which can be by the belief in belonging to a common 'race' (Balibar 1991: 96-99). Clearly women play a central role in the building of such a national community, and 'women, sexuality and family [are significant as] symbols in the reproduction of a nation and its boundaries' (Steans 1998: 65). Nations are the natural extensions of family relationships where, as Cynthia Enloe paints it, the men protect the 'womanandchildren' and where the key role for women is to be mothers of patriots, their sons (Yuval-Davis 1997: 15). How might cuisine be implicated in such processes? Most national symbols such as flags, shields and emblems, as well as national war memorials, are clearly gendered and will often be associated with male security forces, perhaps seen as marching together to the future of the nation. These symbols of national identity adorn national web-sites that often contain national anthems which can be downloaded, as for instance from Gabon's official home page (ws: Gabon). These symbols are perhaps the forward-looking, modernising aspect of the Janus-face of nationalism (Nairn 1997: 67, 71-2; McClintock 1993: 61-80; T. Cusack 2000).

13 Spain has concentratedon fostering educationaland culturallinks with its former colony, while France, trying to extend its influence in the region, has been more concerned with the economy (I. Cusack 1997). Two newspapers,La Opini6n and El Tiempo, G.E., have very recently been launchedin Malabo(El Patio April-May2000, 69: 6). 14 The total populationof EquatorialGuineais probablystill less thanhalf a million.

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Women in Africa, and elsewhere, on the other hand, are often seen as the guardiansof tradition. For example, Dogon Yaro, from Niamey in Niger, who writes in Sahel Dimanche,complainsthat modernwives are no longer able to cook properly,unlike their mothers or grandmothers. So instead of returning home after work to the 'culinary platitudes'(such as a mush of millet) producedby wife or wives, the men preferto go to the Gargotibres,small street food stalls, run by foreign Yao women from the coast. Traditionalculture is being lost and it is the 'ModernAfrican Woman' who is to blame (Barrot1994: 23-27). Pilcher has shown how, in the evolution of contemporaryMexican cuisine, females played a crucial role in the assembling of colonial and Pre-Columbianrecipe books and suggests that women were perhapsless concernedwith the social stigma associated with the Pre-Columbiandishes. Male chefs, in turn, were the main proponentsof the French influence on Mexican cuisine (Pilcher 1996: 211-14). So if cuisine is a crucial part of Mexican national identity, that cuisine has at least been partially built by women. In Africa, women are perhapsalso more willing than men to assemble recipes from different ethnic groups, as women are less implicated in the power structures inherent in the maintenanceof these groups Perhapsthis is the case in the Equatoguineancookery book discussed above. Indeed, from the brief review of African cuisine above it is clear that it is mostly women, whether in the West or in Africa, who are collecting and collating recipes into a nationalcorpus. The public appropriationof a national cuisine results in the creation of just another symbol of the nation, especially if certain dishes are proclaimednationalones. However the assembling of a national cuisine blends various regional and ethnic traditions together,summoningsome from the past, like the roast beef of old Englandthat has been celebratedas a nationaldish. Women, then, might be viewed as assistantsto the dominant male ruling 61lites,who are very willing to presentthe nationalcuisine alongside the flags and anthems that symbolise the nation they wish to construct. It might therefore be argued that while women are collating recipes and looking to the past, men are the resultingnationalcuisine and looking to the future. appropriating How gender enters notions of nationhood can also be derived from the debates concerningthe private/publicdomain. Feminist writers are surely correct in pointing out the intrusion, in the 'liberal' West, of the 'public' into the 'private' space which patriarchalsocieties might wish to maintain.It is interestingto note that even if the notion of all societies being patriarchalmight be challenged, a large part of Africa lies in what has been termed 'the patriarchalbelt' which stretchesacross NorthernAfrica, throughthe Middle East to India and partsof China (Yuval-Davis 1997: 7). However, in 6lite circles at least, it is clear that women's domestic role, confinedto the home, is more widespread thanthis limitedgeographicalareawould suggest. Colonial, settler and post-colonial cookery books are sharply focused on the housewife. For example, in choosing meat 'the housewife herself must visit the butcher's shop and be guided by the butcheras he is the expert' (Membersof St. Andrews Church 1994: 69). In Mary Ominde's Cookerybook, a Kenyan housewife is shown on the front cover cheerfully assemblingthe next meal with her young son smilingly looking on. (See Figure 2.) The author declares: 'The book attempts to remind the housewife of the importanceof a balanceddiet when planningthe family menu, especially where there are children.This in itself is a contributionto the developmentof nation building ...' (1975: introduction).It is clear for whom the nation is being built for here, presumablythe grinningson. Elsewhere in the 'African Studies' cookbook we are told 'how a dinner is servedin Kenya': 'the hostess opens the door dressedin a bright floor-lengthskirt and a

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Africancuisines

May

mide?-S-

AFRI2A

FIGURE2 (withpermissionof East AfricanEducationalPublishers,Nairobi)

strikingbandannawound loosely about her head. She standsthere, hands outstretched,to bid you welcome ... Our hostess returnsto the kitchen to pound the groundnuts...' (ws: Kenya, Menus and Recipes). Pendaeli-Sarakikya,in her TanzaniaCookbook,seems to be writing for the 'intelligent cook [who] can select recipes and alter them to meet her immediate needs' (1977: vii). Certainly in the illustrations in EquatorialGuinea's first cookery book there is no doubt as to who is sitting at the cooking pot, and in the foreword to AuthenticAfrican Cuisinefrom Ghana we are told that 'partof becoming a women in Ghanacultureis learningto cook these flavourfulfoods' (SainchezZarzosaand Domingo Bodel6n 1991: 14; Otoo 1997: v). Everywherea similarpatternemerges. Duringthe hour long 'coffee ceremony' held in Eritrea, 'a woman' has to preparethe coffee and we are told 'it is shameful to let the coffee boil over' (ws: Mebrat Tzehaie: 2). If women are confined to the private sphere they will have little role in the public development of the nation, while at the same time that part of the nation-buildingproject which appeals to tradition, which looks to the past, envisages woman in a role confined to that private domain,in the house or hut or in the boundedyard. However, perhapsthe whole idea of a private sphere is not one that should be applied as a general rule in sub-Saharan Africa. Gwendolyn Mikell argues that the domestic-public dichotomy takes some unique forms in sub-Saharantraditionalcultures and that 'the domestic-public dichotomy has no "universal" form. Although the association of women with the domestic realm ... is common to many societies ... there is considerablevariationin gender roles' (1997: 6-10). In some traditionalAfrican groups women, for example, still have their own method of fishing (Vansina 1990: 91). Mikell also argues that African models emphasise the communalor corporategroup as opposed

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to the individual, so that there may be an overlap between the domestic and the public/politicalspheres and that women play a wider range of roles in Africa than many places elsewhere (1997: 8). Oy6r6nk6 Oyewihmi also argues that Western gender discourses have been imposed on Yoritbaicultures. In the particularYoritbasociety she examines, the category 'woman' does not exist as a category for organising society. She arguesthat 'the body was not the basis of social roles, inclusions, or exclusion: it was not the foundationof social thoughtand identity' (Oyewiimi 1997: x). However, this study is specific to one section of the Yorthb, and she accepts that Western gender discourses have now infiltratedeven this specific Yoribaiculture. In many societies, it is only when cooking takes place in the public sphere, say in a restaurantor in the open air - whether at an Australianbarbecueor a Provencal ailloli that men 'man' the stoves. However, it is nearly always women who serve grilled fish and plantainin the stalls along GardenStreet in Limb6 in Cameroon,or 'delicious salads' at the GrandMarch6in Lom6 or in the 'allocodrome' in Abidjan. Indeed, in most of subSaharan Africa, women emerge from the private sphere to sell at markets and serve 'streeteats,' an essentialand indeed vital partof public life. So what conclusion might one reach about the contributionof an African national cuisine to the gendering of the African nation? Men have generally played a dominant part in every aspect of political and cultural life in Africa, so that a national cuisine collated by women at least gives women a part in the shaping of the national cultural identity, even if their role here fits into the usual patternof ethno-culturalnationalism, with women associatedwith traditionand the nation's fictive past. It is not clear whether the more complex gender relationshipsseen in traditionalAfrican societies can impinge upon the nation-buildingproject.Because the nation-buildingprojectitself is very much a productof the westernised6lites, it is likely that any genderingof the nation will follow Westernpatterns. 7. Conclusions

The aims of this paperhave been modest: to ask some questions about the emergence of nationalcuisines in Africa, about what is happeningand who is involved. It is clear from this brief discussion that the West is deeply implicatedin this process. This should come as no surprise,since, after all, the nation-buildingefforts are takingplace within Western constructionsresulting from the 19th century 'scramblefor Africa'. Spain and Portugal seem to be the most enthusiastic of the former colonial powers in nurturingcuisines in their old colonies. Britainand Francehave also clearly left their imprinton the emerging African cuisines, but for probablydifferentreasons (indifferenceand arrogance?)appear to have little interest in what is happening today. African-Americanshave, however, generatedinterestin African-Americancooking and hence African cooking and the large African populations in the West have provided a focus for this interest. The process of appropriationof the nation's cuisines by the ruling elites in sub-SaharaAfrica has only just begun, and the next few years will provide a clearer view as to what role national cuisines are to play in the project of nation-building and what contribution to the genderingof the nation this might make. Once these national cuisines are established, however, national dishes will unobtrusivelyflag the nation and thus help maintain that nationwithoutrecourseto overt nationalistrhetoricand flag-waving. IGORCUSACKcan be contacted at the Department of Politics, University of Bristol, 10 Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU; email: Igor.Cusack@ bris.ac.uk.

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Countries. New York:Hippocrene. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Genderand Nation. London:Sage. WEB-SITES (Correct at time of writing) Air Madagascar:http://www.air-mad.com/cuisine.htm AfricanStudiesCookbook: http://www.sas.upen.edu/African_Studies/Cookbook/aboutcbwh.html Angola. (Official web-site, food section):http://www.angola.org/culture/foodind.html Cape Verde. (Official web-site):http://www.capeverdeusembassy.org/cuisine.html Congo Cookbook:http.www.geocities.com/congocookbook/ DfID news: http://www.gov.uk/public/news/pr27july00.html Dining in Harlem:http://harlem-ontime.com/tour/african Ekabo(Berne):http://www.harrier.ch/harrier/likkmm/Ekabo.html as at 4 April 2000. EquatorialGuinea.(Official web-site):http://www.equatorialguinea.org Eritrea.(Official web-site):http://www.eritrea.org Foodbooks:http://www.foodbooks.com/africam.htm Gabon.(Official web-site):http://www.alderan.fr/presidence-gabon/index Kenya:Menus & Recipes from Africa at http://cygnus.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Cookbook/Kenya.html List of AfricanRestaurants: html http//www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Miscellany/African_Restaurants. Mauritania.(Official web-site, culture):http:mauritania.mr/Francais/aper_hist cult_fr.htm MebratTzehaie. EritreanCuisine.:http://home.wxs.nl/-hans.mebrat/CUIS.HTM MotherlandNigeria. Recipes (By Boomie 0.): http://www.motherlandnigeria.com/recipes.html Portugalem linha. SaboresLus6fonos:http://www.portugal-linha.pt/sabores/index.html Sally's place: http://sallys-place.com/food/ethnic_cusine/africa.htm [sic] Senegal. Sample Menu & Recipes:http.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Cookbook/cb_spot.html

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