Food Culture In Africa

I am an Asian and know very little about Africa but what I read and hear from my friends that live in Africa makes me curious to study their culture, their food habits and their lifestyle. And what I read makes me even more curious. Recently one of my friends working in SA returned and told me some amusing stories about them.

He said, "Africa is moving towards vegetarianism, and mind you, people couldn't even think of eating there without meat just a couple of years ago." That sure made me think.

I know, in many countries the trend of adopting vegetarian food is increasing. In particular, the trend of vegetarian food has also increased in those countries where the diet of the people consists mainly of non-vegetarian food. A plant-based diet is also becoming popular in European countries, and veg restaurants are opening in large numbers there. And they are all doing well.

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I remember reading a report in a newspaper about the changing food trends in Africa. It said at a small roadside restaurant, people ate more beanballs, grilled tofu skewers, and peanut butter rice, while the trend toward chicken is going down. You will see no knives on the tables at plant-based restaurants which sure is a surprising change.

One of my friends who returned from an African country says he read in front of a vegetarian restaurant, "They cook food for the love of their customers' health." That means they cook food, keeping in mind that being a vegetarian is good for the health of people.

My friend was interested in knowing how they made grilled tofu skewers, so he went to meet the cook. The ingredients for veggie skewers made with tofu, zucchini, red onion, and bell peppers are grilled to perfection and served with tangy balsamic vinegar and a fresh garlic herb sauce.

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My friend says that the place is always full of customers and some of them are even regular that come daily. Customers visiting the restaurant love its owner. But she says it wasn't always like this. The owner says, "It wasn't easy in the beginning because people find vegetarian food strange. She said, "They had no idea how we could cook food without using meat." She also said, "We sat open for a few days and couldn't sell anything, but then everything changed for good."

The vegetarian restaurant, which opened in the first decade of this century, faced problems initially, but the number of customers has grown rapidly. Initially, they were served with the popular barbecued tofu skewers, which are now quite popular food items.

Given the challenges to health and the environment across Africa, a growing number of plant-based restaurants are following in that first restaurant's footsteps. Now, they say, they have a list of over 900 restaurants serving vegetarian food in Africa. And more than half of these have been added to the list in the last two years.

As of early 2018, 30 completely vegetarian restaurants have been listed. My vegetarian friend, who found his vegetarian food with great difficulty in the beginning, now feels that the demand for vegetarian food has increased in most major cities, so he has no problem finding the food of his choice. It is great for those who like to eat plant-based foods. He says documentary films promoting vegetarianism are also being made, which YouTubers run on their channels. This is helping to popularize vegetarianism.

Vegetarian restaurants are becoming quite popular in the cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. There are more than a dozen meat-free restaurants today in cities such as Nairobi, Kenya, and Accra, Ghana. Only vegetarian food is available here. Salad and vegetable sandwiches are being added to the menu at upmarket seaside restaurants in Dakar, Senegal's capital, which previously only served meat and fish dishes.

Africa is currently grappling with some of the biggest challenges that can only be successfully tackled by adopting vegetarianism. According to the World Health Organization, diseases such as heart disease and cancer have now overtaken infectious diseases such as cholera and measles in Africa. This is increasing the burden on the African economy. Africa is already facing the effects of the climate crisis. There, problems like drought and floods wreak havoc on the farmers. Therefore, reducing the consumption of meat, with its far-reaching effects, will also have positive effects on these problems.

However, proponents of vegetarianism say that vegetarianism is not a new trend in Africa, but rather a return to the traditional African diet. "I especially find it important to promote vegetarianism across Africa, as it originated in Africa," says chef Nicola Kagoro, who has worked in South Africa and Zimbabwe. They say that our ancestors did not eat much meat. After the colonization of Western countries, the practice of non-vegetarian food increased in African countries.

My friend works in the forest department in South Africa, where he finds African Vegan as a budget movement to show that vegetarian diets could be cheap and nutritious for Africans. He met a visiting lady who cooks for a group of female vegetarian armed rangers that fight elephant poachers in Zimbabwe. She says vegetarianism is increasing in Africa, which was unimaginable a couple of decades ago. Now they are eating the world's healthiest diets based on plant-based foods, such as sourdough flatbreads, lentils, and beans.

However, some nonvegetarian restaurant owners still don't believe that vegetarian food will ever gain popularity in Africa. It is a bit difficult to spread the practice of vegetarian food in Africa because most Africans prefer non-vegetarian food. They feel that Africans also associate eating meat with prosperity.

My friend says, every effort is being made to promote vegetarianism, and people are being made aware of its benefits by talking about it. Please correct me if you feel my information is not fully correct.

Thanks for reading.