Category Archives: Africa-General

Livingston’s Adventures with Manioc [Cassava] in Southern Africa

Posted on 30/06/2015 by dianabuja

Yesterday I had for lunch an African dish with fish and cassava [manioc] in a delicious sauce.  This reminded me of the oft negative descriptions of the crop as being something less that wonderful; as written by David Livingston : The … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Crop harvests, Cuisine, David Livingstone | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sacred Huts and Magical Aspects of Food

Posted on 01/04/2015 by dianabuja

Robert Nassau, as David Livingstone before him, was a missionary, explorer, and recorder of people, geography and customs in the areas through which he traveled and lived.  Also, as Livingstone, he was a product of the colonial era of the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Cuisine, Food, Indigenous crops & medicinal plants, Magic, Missionaries, Recipes, Robert Nassau | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Magicality of Cuisine 2: A Recipe for a complicated Love Filtre for Men. 19th Century Gabon

Posted on 14/11/2014 by dianabuja

Continuing our survey of pre-modern dishes with examples from the Gabon area of West Africa, I want to give a recipe for a love filtre for men as detailed by Dr. Robert Nassau, who served as missionary, doctor and ethnologist throughout … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Africa-West, Anthropology, Cuisine, Ethnography, Indigenous crops & medicinal plants, Magic, Missionaries, Recipes, Robert Nassau | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Magicality of Cuisine 1: Meat Cooked in Plantain Leaves as a Love Philtre, 19th Century Gabon, West Africa

Posted on 07/11/2014 by dianabuja

Pre-modern cuisine in many parts of the world can be more fully understood not simply as a technical  ‘recipe’ to be constructed – but also in relation to the context in which it is situated.  Hence, there may be social, sexual, political, religious … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Cuisine, Food, Indigenous crops & medicinal plants, Magic, Missionaries, Recipes, Robert Nassau | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Cuisine and Crops in Central Africa – Colonial and Contemporary – Pt. 3

Posted on 23/08/2014 by dianabuja

Cuisine before Colonization: What did local people eat, prior to the introduction of New World crops?  I ask this, because from the prior blog on Cuisine and Crops in Central Africa,  it is primarily New World crops that were mentioned … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Agriculture, Colonialism, Cuisine, History, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Botanical – Brews

Posted on 21/07/2014 by dianabuja

An interesting blog on botanical brews from Diane O’Donovan and her excellent writeups on the Voynich manuscript. I’d completely forgotten the exchange that we had on botanical brews – as discussed by me here – https://dianabuja.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/banana-beer-and-other-fermented-drinks-in-africa/. Diane carries out the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Agriculture, Beer, Botany, Europe - medieval | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What the well-dressed fieldworker is wearing this summer (i)

Posted on 29/04/2014 by dianabuja

Matthew Timothy Bradley is posting a series of blog on field-garb, which is both very useful for those in or going to the field and is also very amusing.  Some good analysis from, of course, a field anthropologist.  Here are a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa-General, Anthropology, Egypt, Ethnography, Explorers & exploration | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment