Central Africa stretches from the Tibesti mountains in the north to vast rainforest basin of the Congo River, and has remained largely free of culinary influences of the outside world, until the late 19th century, with the exception of the widespread adaptation of cassava, peanut, and Chile pepper plants which arrived along with the slave trade during the early 16th century. These foodstuffs have had a large influence on the local cuisine, perhaps less on the preparation methods. Central African cooking has remained mostly traditional. Nevertheless, like other parts of Africa, Central African cuisine also presents an array of dishes.

Fufu (right) is a staple food of Central Africa, pictured with some peanut soup

The basic ingredients are plantains and cassava. Fufu-like starchy foods (usually made from fermented cassava roots) are served with grilled meat and sauces. A variety of local ingredients are used while preparing other dishes like spinach stew, cooked with tomato, peppers, chiles, onions, and peanut butter. Cassava plants are also consumed as cooked greens. Groundnut (peanut) stew is also prepared, containing chicken, okra, ginger, and other spices. Another favorite is Bambara, a porridge of rice, peanut butter and sugar. Beef and chicken are favorite meat dishes, but game meat preparations containing crocodile, monkey, antelope and warthog are also served occasionally.

The cooking of Southern Africa is sometimes called ‘rainbow cuisine’, as the food in this region is a blend of many cultures – the indigenous African tribal societies, European and Asian. To understand indigenous cuisine, it is important first to digress to understand the various native peoples of southern Africa. The indigenous people of Southern Africa were roughly divided into two groups and several sub groups. The largest group consisted of the Bantu-speakers, whose descendants today may identify themselves by various sub-group names such as Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Sotho, Tswana, Pedi, Shangaan and Tsonga. They arrived in the region around two thousand years ago, bringing crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and iron tool making with them. Hence the Bantu-speakers grew grain crops extensively and raised cattle, sheep and goats. They also grew and continue to grow pumpkins, beans and leafy greens as vegetables.

Traditional South African cuisine

A smaller group were the primeval residents of the region, the Khoisan, who some archaeologists believe, had lived in the region for at least ten thousand years. Many descendants of the Khoisan people have now been incorporated into the Coloured population of South Africa. The Khoisan originally were hunter gathers (who came to be known as “San” by the Bantu-speakers and as “bushmen” by Europeans). After the arrival of the Bantu-speakers, however, some Khoisan adopted the Bantu-speakers’ cattle raising, but did not grow crops. The Khoisan who raised cattle called themselves “Khoi-Khoi” and came to be known by Europeans as “Hottentots.”

Potjiekos is a traditional Afrikaner stew made with

People were, in other words, defined to some extent by the kinds of food they ate. The Bantu speakers ate dishes of grain, meat, milk and vegetables, as well as fermented grain and fermented milk products, while the Khoi-Khoi ate meat and milk, and the San hunted wild animals and gathered wild tubers and vegetables. In many ways, the daily food of Black South African families can be traced to the indigenous foods that their ancestors ate. The Khoisan ate roasted meat, and they also dried meat for later use. The influence of their diet is reflected in the universal (black and white) Southern African love of barbecue (generally called in South Africa by its Afrikaans name, a “braai”) and biltong (dried preserved meat). Traditional beer was ubiquitous in the southern African diet, and the fermentation added additional nutrients to the diet. It was a traditional obligation for any family to be able to offer a visitor copious amounts of beer. Beer brewing was done by women, and the status of a housewife in pre-colonial southern Africa depended significantly on her skill at brewing delicious beer.

A carton and glass of “mageu” a traditional non-alcoholic drink made from

Milk was historically one of the most important components of the southern African diet. Cattle were considered a man’s most important possession, and in order to marry, a man had to compensate his prospective in-laws with a gift of cattle as a dowry for his bride. A married man was expected to provide a generous supply of milk to his wife and children, along with meat whenever he slaughtered cattle, sheep or goats. Because there was no refrigeration, most milk was soured into a kind of yogurt. The young men of the family often took care of the cattle far away from the villages at “cattle posts,” and they sent a steady stream of yogurt home on behalf of their fathers. Today, many Black South Africans enjoy drinking sour milk products that are sold in the supermarket, and these products are comparable to American buttermilk, yogurt and sour cream. On weekends they, like white South Africans, will have a “braai” and the meal would usually consist of “pap and vleis,” which is maize porridge and grilled meat.

The basic ingredients include seafood, meat products (including wild game), poultry, as well as grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruits include apples, grapes, mangoes, bananas and papayas, avocado, oranges, peaches and apricots. Desserts may simply be fruit, but there are some more western style puddings, such as the Angolan Cocada amarela, which was inspired by Portuguese cuisine. Meat products include lamb, and game like venison, ostrich, and impala. The seafood includes a wide variety such as crayfish, prawns, tuna, mussels, oysters, calamari, mackerel, and lobster. Last but not least, there are also several types of traditional and modern alcoholic beverages including many European-style beers.

North Africa lies along the Mediterranean Sea and encompasses within its fold several nations, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Egypt. This is a region marked by geographic, political, social, economic and cultural diversity, and the cuisine and the culinary style and art of North Africa are also as diverse as the land, its people and its history. The roots to North African cuisine can be traced back over 2000 years.

An array of Moroccan pastries

Over several centuries traders, travelers, invaders, migrants and immigrants all have influenced the cuisine of North Africa. The Phoenicians of the 1st century brought sausages, the Carthaginians introduced wheat and its by-product, semolina. The Berbers, adapted this into couscous, one of the main staple diet. Olives and olive oils were introduced before the arrival of the Romans. From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs introduced a variety of spices, like saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, which contributed and influenced the culinary culture of North Africa. The Ottoman Turks brought sweet pastries and other bakery products, and from the New World, North Africa got potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini and chilis.

Fresh couscous with vegetables and chickpeas

Most of the North African countries have several similar dishes, sometimes almost the same dish with a different name (the Moroccan tangia and the Tunisian coucha are both essentially the same dish: a meat stew prepared in an urn and cooked overnight in a public oven), sometimes with a slight change in ingredients and cooking style. To add to the confusion, two completely different dishes may also share the same name (for example, a “tajine” dish is a slow-cooked stew in Morocco, whereas the Tunisian “tajine” is a baked omelette/quiche-like dish). There are noticeable differences between the cooking styles of different nations – there’s the sophisticated, full-bodied flavours of Moroccan palace cookery, the fiery dishes of Tunisian cuisine, and the humbler, simpler cuisines of Egypt and Algeria.

Ugali is pictured here with a side dish of cabbage, though it is more typically eaten with kale (Sukuma wiki).

East Africa:

The cuisine of East Africa varies from area to area. In the inland savannah, the traditional cuisine of cattle-keeping peoples is distinctive in that meat products are generally absent. Cattle, sheep and goats were regarded as a form of currency and a store of wealth, and are not generally consumed as food. In some areas, traditional peoples consume the milk and blood of cattle, but rarely the meat. Elsewhere, other peoples are farmers who grow a variety of grains and vegetables. Maize (corn) is the basis of ugali, the East African version of West Africa’s fufu. Ugali is a starch dish eaten with meats or stews. In Uganda, steamed, green bananas called matoke provide the starch filler of many meals.

Around 1000 years ago, the Arabs settled in the coastal areas of East Africa, and Arabic influences are especially reflected in the Swahili cuisine of the coast – steamed cooked rice with spices in Persian style, use of saffron, cloves, cinnamon and several other spices, and pomegranate juice.

Several centuries later, the British and the Indians came, and both brought with them their foods, like Indian spiced vegetable curries, lentil soups, chapattis and a variety of pickles. Just before the British and the Indians, the Portuguese had introduced techniques of roasting and marinating, as also use of spices turning the bland diet into aromatic stewed dishes. Portuguese also brought from their Asian colonies fruits like the orange, lemon and lime. From their colonies in the New World, Portuguese also brought exotic items like chilies, peppers, maize, tomatoes, pineapple, bananas, and the domestic pig – now, all these are common elements of East African food.

Horn of Africa:
The main traditional dishes in Eritrean cuisine are tsebhis (stews) served with injera (flatbread made from teff,[1] wheat, or sorghum), and hilbet (paste made from legumes, mainly lentil, faba beans). Eritrean and Ethiopian cuisine (especially in the northern half) are very similar, given the shared history of the two countries.

Eritrean food habits vary regionally. In the highlands, injera is the staple diet and is eaten daily among the Tigrinya. Injera is made out of a variation and/or blend of: teff, wheat, barley, sorghum and corn and resembles a spongy, slightly sour pancake. When eating, diners generally share food from a large tray placed in the centre of a low dining table. Numerous injera are layered on this tray and topped with various spicy stews. Diners then break into the section of injera in front of them, tearing off pieces and dipping them into the stews.

In the lowlands, the main dish is akelet, a porridge-like dish made from wheat flour dough. A ladle is used to scoop out the top, which is filled with berbere and butter sauce and surrounded by milk or yoghurt. A small piece of dough is broken and then used to scoop up the sauce.
The best known Ethiopian cuisine consists of various vegetable or meat side dishes and entrées, usually a wat, or thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread made of teff flour. One does not eat with utensils, but instead uses injera to scoop up the entrées and side dishes.

Tihlo prepared from roasted barley flour is very popular in Amhara, Agame, and Awlaelo (Tigrai). Traditional Ethiopian cuisine employs no pork or shellfish of any kind, as they are forbidden in the Islamic, Jewish, and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faiths. It is also very common to eat from the same dish in the center of the table with a group of people.
Xalwo, the Somali version of halva, is a staple of Somali cuisine.

Somali cuisine varies from region to region and consists of an exotic mixture of diverse culinary influences. It is the product of Somalia’s rich tradition of trade and commerce. Despite the variety, there remains one thing that unites the various regional cuisines: all food is served halal. There are therefore no pork dishes, alcohol is not served, nothing that died on its own is eaten, and no blood is incorporated. Qaddo or lunch is often elaborate.

Photograph by Frans Lanting

Tinted orange by the morning sun, a soaring dune is the backdrop for the hulks of camel thorn trees in Namib-Naukluft Park.

New Names to the African Name Web Site

Anika – Yoruba dailect Nigeria
Ameyo is a girl name from Ghana and the Ewe dialect meaning a girl born on Saturday

Ayana- Beautiful Flower- Ethiopian

Ariel- Loiness of God

Kai – Girl name, basically means “love”, Yoruba dialect, Nigeria

Komnan- Boy’s Name in Ghana Fante means born on Monday.
More Names from Liberia

Dwede (pronounced “dwe-day”. This is a female’s name meaning Dwe’s Mother; as you would say Junior’s Ma or Pa.)

Mamawa (MAWAY) (This is another female’s name meaning small-mother. This name is for someone who is the name-sake of your mother or grandmother or just another older person you call Ma or Mama in the family)

Sianeh ( is actually ” Sie-Anyene” which means Sie’s Wife. If your
husband’s name is Sie, and a girl is named after you, you may decide to call her this name to reflect your love and honour for your husband

Wahde (pronounced “Wah-Day” means Wah’s Mother. Again if you have a son called WAH, and a girl is named after you, you can choose to call that child Wahde reflecting your love and respect for your son Wah.

Wonlay (this name can be given to either a boy or girl child. Actually
it is pronounced “War-nie” and means “Tired”. This name is given a girl
whose parents have lost a lot of children in either childbirth/childhood.
They are simply saying that “We are tired of all troubles/problems.)

Yenplu ( is actually pronounced “NYENE-PLU” and the name means
“White Woman”. It is given to a considered-beautiful girl child).

Dwe (the name DWE is a boy’s name, and for a girl it is “NYENE-DWE”.
NYENE is Woman or Wife. Dwe is the Grebo name for an elephant and so this name is given to a person who is great, strong and power, and sometimes even big.

Monon-Konmlan (or Konmlan for short)– Boy name In Liberian Kru means I’m the one with the luck/blessing.

Soe-Tehpoe (or Tehpoe for short)- boy name In Liberian kru means I’m not to be blamed/I’m not responsible for what happened.
Jayplo/Japlo– Girl name in Liberian Kru means beautiful girl.

Kissi Names

The Kissi people are from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Boys Name

Saa, Saah or Sarh: First boy
Tamba: Second boy

Girls Name

Sia: First girl
Kumba: Second girl
Finda: Third girl

Names from “Africa’s Experience in America”

List of names from African slaves and later free people of Newport, Rhode Island. Newport was at the center of the African Slave Trade during the Colonial Period. Today, it has the nation’s oldest and largest slave burial markers with the oldest dating back to 1690. Nearly all Newport slaves came from Cape Coast then on to Barbados and Jamaica to Newport.

Cuffee – is the Anglicized version of the Ghanaian name “Kofi” which is a name given to boys born on Friday.
Salmar
Nubia
Yama
Quamino
Mowatt
Cuff
Mingo
Occramar
Marycoo
Zingo
Quarco
Orbour (Female)
Mimbo (Female)

African names whose origins are not known.
Girls

A – Abu, Amma
B – Banwai, Bella
C – Chioma, Coto
D – Deddeh, Dwede
E – Ebun
F – Famata, Fatima, Fazzie, Feta
G – Garmaih
H – Hawa
J – Jlay, Juah, Jugbeh
K – Kamah, Kebbeh, Kona, Kollie, Korto, Korlu, Kula
L – Lorpu
M – Madia, Mamawa, Massa, Mayatu, Matu, Mazu, Miata or Miatta, Moima, Munah, Musu, Miehdi
N – Nowah Nahdi, Neeway, Nahweh, Nowu
O – Owalla
S – Saybah, Sadatu, Sadia, Saida, Sianeh, Siata or Siatta
T – Tonia, Tenneh, Tuma
W – Wyiata, Wonlay
Y – Yama, Yarta or Yatta, Yassa or Yassah, Yamah, Yarmah, Yata, Yenpu
Z – Zoe
Boys

A – Abu, Amu, Ansu, Armah
B – Boimah, Boikai
F – Flomo, Foday, Fokra
G – Goma
K – Kandaki, Kwame, Kofa, Kofi
L – Lamie
M – Marbue, Massala, Momo
O – Oso, Sia, Sidiki, Siafa
T – Tokpah, Toyuwa, Trokon
V – Varney
W – Wleh
Z – Zanele, Zinnah, Zwana