flatly that “there’s no such place as Africa.” And he’s right, in the sense that talking about “Africa” forces you to make broad and sometimes empty generalizations. Africa is just unbelievably huge; you could pretty well lose the lower forty-eight states in the Sahara, and early Portuguese, English, and Italian mapmakers used to do amazing conceptual backflips to make the continent look like something less than nearly triple the size of Europe.
Still, the cultures of sub-Saharan Western Africa share some broad culinary tendencies, just as those of Northern Europe do. These tendencies and customs were probably especially important to the first generations of enslaved Africans, who had been thrown together without sharing a language, or possibly a religion—without sharing very much at all. Cooking food in a way familiar to all those present could have signaled that they shared at least some widely dispersed customs and practices; it could have hinted at the start of a community.
Of course, the food choices of slaves were often terribly limited; the familiar would always be welcome, but it might not always be attainable. Even in rice-growing states, where the primary grain was known and loved by many recently enslaved farmers, most were given rations of less expensive corn. Where Africans had yams, there might be sweet potatoes; for millet, substitute wheat. What’s more, social conditions varied widely by region—even from one plantation to the next—so one family of slaves might have access to very different foods than those eaten by another only a few miles distant. Slaves might be given only tough, cheap cuts of meat, or else whole animals might be shared throughout the entire quarter; they might be allowed fowling pieces, or nets and traps, or forbidden from hunting at all.
But whatever they were given as provisions, whatever else they grew or trapped or hunted or scavenged, the slaves cooked food as they understood food should be cooked. And just as a language can quickly adopt new words within a slowly changing grammatical structure, particular ingredients were naturally cooked using familiar, traditional, durable skills. The fact that many West Africans made vegetable relishes—using meat more as a flavoring than a primary ingredient—then served them over cooked starches, may have been more important than whether the starch was corn, as on the Gold Coast, or yams, as among the Ibo. West African gardeners and cooks knew millet, rice, corn, yams, and manioc; they knew eggplant, peppers, okra, black-eyed peas, cowpeas, onions, and a variety of greens. Now, no matter what there was to fill it, the stewpot would keep on simmering—whether there were yams or white potatoes, roots baked on the hearth.
West Africans shared six major cooking techniques: boiling in water, steaming in leaves, frying in deep oil, toasting beside the fire, roasting over the fire, and baking in ashes. Like specific ingredients such as sesame, many of these techniques became important in the emerging food culture of the American South—a culture that drew on African and European roots and used many ingredients grown for generations by Native Americans. Within that food culture, there could still be many distinctions between place and class and race. But just as the African banjos became the heart of bluegrass music and Yoruba to-gun (“place of assembly”) buildings were adapted as the shotgun houses common through the Mississippi Delta, African elements were simply included, without comment, among the foundations of Southern food. The cooking on the Quarles farm was creolized to the point that both whites and blacks may have seen it, simply, as cooking.
Twain’s menu is full of dishes with African roots. His fried chicken (perhaps the region’s single most famous dish) was cooked in deep fat, a technique used in Scotland but perhaps more common in Western Africa, where the cooking fat would have been palm oil. What’s
Still, the cultures of sub-Saharan Western Africa share some broad culinary tendencies, just as those of Northern Europe do. These tendencies and customs were probably especially important to the first generations of enslaved Africans, who had been thrown together without sharing a language, or possibly a religion—without sharing very much at all. Cooking food in a way familiar to all those present could have signaled that they shared at least some widely dispersed customs and practices; it could have hinted at the start of a community.
Of course, the food choices of slaves were often terribly limited; the familiar would always be welcome, but it might not always be attainable. Even in rice-growing states, where the primary grain was known and loved by many recently enslaved farmers, most were given rations of less expensive corn. Where Africans had yams, there might be sweet potatoes; for millet, substitute wheat. What’s more, social conditions varied widely by region—even from one plantation to the next—so one family of slaves might have access to very different foods than those eaten by another only a few miles distant. Slaves might be given only tough, cheap cuts of meat, or else whole animals might be shared throughout the entire quarter; they might be allowed fowling pieces, or nets and traps, or forbidden from hunting at all.
But whatever they were given as provisions, whatever else they grew or trapped or hunted or scavenged, the slaves cooked food as they understood food should be cooked. And just as a language can quickly adopt new words within a slowly changing grammatical structure, particular ingredients were naturally cooked using familiar, traditional, durable skills. The fact that many West Africans made vegetable relishes—using meat more as a flavoring than a primary ingredient—then served them over cooked starches, may have been more important than whether the starch was corn, as on the Gold Coast, or yams, as among the Ibo. West African gardeners and cooks knew millet, rice, corn, yams, and manioc; they knew eggplant, peppers, okra, black-eyed peas, cowpeas, onions, and a variety of greens. Now, no matter what there was to fill it, the stewpot would keep on simmering—whether there were yams or white potatoes, roots baked on the hearth.
West Africans shared six major cooking techniques: boiling in water, steaming in leaves, frying in deep oil, toasting beside the fire, roasting over the fire, and baking in ashes. Like specific ingredients such as sesame, many of these techniques became important in the emerging food culture of the American South—a culture that drew on African and European roots and used many ingredients grown for generations by Native Americans. Within that food culture, there could still be many distinctions between place and class and race. But just as the African banjos became the heart of bluegrass music and Yoruba to-gun (“place of assembly”) buildings were adapted as the shotgun houses common through the Mississippi Delta, African elements were simply included, without comment, among the foundations of Southern food. The cooking on the Quarles farm was creolized to the point that both whites and blacks may have seen it, simply, as cooking.
Twain’s menu is full of dishes with African roots. His fried chicken (perhaps the region’s single most famous dish) was cooked in deep fat, a technique used in Scotland but perhaps more common in Western Africa, where the cooking fat would have been palm oil. What’s
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