Out of Africa

Calgary’s annual Afrikadey! festivities offer a chance to experience the cultures of Africa. Like the music and dance traditions from the many countries that make up this massive continent, the food is equally diverse, from the sweetly spiced tagines of Morocco to the manly South African braai (barbecue). Africans eat a wide variety of foods that most North Americans have rarely, if ever, sampled, from cassava fufu and mielie pap  — the African answer to dumplings and polenta — to pumpkin and utazi leaves, cocoyam root and smoky Nile perch.

But you don’t need to book a flight: these exotic ingredients can be found at a variety of local African shops.

THE FOOD

Traditional African dishes vary greatly, from north to south and east to west, but there are some constants.

Most Africans eat lots of starchy cassava, pumpkin, yams and root vegetables, in soups and stews. Beans, lentils, plantains, leafy greens and okra figure prominently in recipes, and ground peanuts (groundnuts) and cashews flavour and thicken many dishes. Grains like millet, teff, barley and corn are also staples.

Many African cooks have only a single hot plate or a fire for cooking, so one-pot stews (wot), grilled meats (tibs) and pan-fried breads are common.

Every region of Africa has its own unique cuisine.

North Africans in Morocco serve fragrant stews (tagines), scented with cinnamon and studded with dried fruits, olives and preserved lemons, over couscous, a tiny, hand-rolled semolina pasta. They braise their tender chicken, lamb and fish stews in traditional clay cooking pots with a conical lid that retains moisture as the meat braises. All-Clad, Emile Henry and Le Creuset now produce colourful tagine pots for contemporary French-Moroccan feasts, though you can still find traditional red clay pots, too.

Variations on Indian curries, bean and lentil dhals and samosas are found throughout Africa, and, in South Africa, the Dutch-Indonesian influence turns up in sausages like boerworst and dishes like the Cape Malay curried meat pie called bobotie.

In Ghana and Nigeria, meat and vegetarian stews are routinely served over grain pilafs or mashes made from corn, cassava or other flours. Ethiopian and Somali stews are spooned over a large round of injera bread, a spongy flatbread made with fermented teff flour, although there are other breads, from muufo (spiced cornbread) to sabayad, a chapati-like pancake.

THE FIND

At TK’s authentic African Products, you’ll find Theresa Kwaku (Aunt Theresa) in her small shop, stacked to the high ceilings with bags of potato and plantain flour fufu, fermented banku mix, wheat semolina and corn grits from Ghana, East Africa, Congo and Ivory Coast. There’s canned palmfruit, slabs of dried cod, buff-coloured Nigerian beans and ground ogbono seeds. Look in the freezer for cow foot, cassava leaves and bags of hot habanero peppers.

At De Chosen African Market, owner Regina Oluwadairo is from Nigeria, but says, “Most Africans from Congo, Kenya, Zimbabwe eat almost the same things — roots, yams, cassava, corn, beans, rice and lots of greens.”

Her market is well-stocked with African herbs and spices, including uziza peppercorns, ehuru for pepper pot soup, egusi to thicken soup and tarragon-like atama leaves and dried shrimp to flavour soup.

There are bottles of mahogany-coloured palm oil, black-eyed peas, canned mackerel and various flours made from beans, pounded yams and potato. In the chest freezers, you’ll find exotic greens, fish and even goat meat.

God’s Glory African and West Indian Market is another African grocery next to Alberta Halal Meat, where you can buy goat and lamb, and authentic African spices. And, in south Calgary, there’s the African Supermart, where Jummai Babaloba stocks all things African, including imported groceries and new prepared lunch and dinner packs.

SA Meat Shop on Kensington Road offers authentic, home-cured South African sausages, dried meats and groceries, perfect to slap on the braai (barbecue). A favourite is the piri-piri chicken “flattie,” a backless, whole chicken, marinated in SA’s own piri-piri sauce and flattened for grilling. Try the dried beef or buffalo sausage sticks (droë wors) or chewy dried beef biltong for snacks, and get a fat coil of fresh Boerewors sausage. SA also makes vetkoek, traditional savoury or sweet filled South African pastries, lamb curry and bobotie pies, creamy milk tarts and koeksisters, braided doughnuts dipped in syrup.

While it’s not strictly an African grocery, you’ll find fresh injera bread daily at Green Cedars Food Mart and Halal Meats, along with couscous and traditional clay tagine cooking pots.

THE FIX

Traditional African dishes are fairly basic combinations of meats or fish and vegetables stewed together with onion, tomatoes and spices like curry or berbere, a spicy mixture of ground red peppers, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, coriander and nutmeg. Ethiopian berbere paste includes these spices, plus garlic, green onion and vinegar, cooked into a spicy puree. You can add a little African flair to any tomato-based stew by adding a spoon of berbere, or stirring a few tablespoons of natural crunchy peanut butter into the sauce just before serving.

You can taste a variety of African foods at the 2010 Afrikadey! Festival events, taking place August 9 to 14 in Prince’s Island Park, or explore African cooking with Regina Oluwadairo’s soon-to-be-published book, West African Dishes the Easy Way.

Get It Here:

African Supermart
11255 30 St. S.W., 403-984-7070

Alberta Halal Meat
15, 3745 Memorial Dr. S.E., 403-272-6328

De Chosen African Market
116, 6800 Memorial Dr. N.E., 403-204-1580, dechosen.com

God’s Glory, African West Indian Market
3745 Memorial Dr. S.E., 403-273-9367

Green Cedars Food Mart and Halal Meats
4710 17 Ave. S.E., 403-235-9983

SA Meat Shop on Kensington Road
106, 2120 Kensington Rd. N.W., 403-270-0739, sameatshops.ca

TK’s authentic African Products
128, 3132 26 St. N.E., 403-590-0726