African Food and Cuisines

Africa is perhaps known more for it's African Safaris and white sandy beaches but when it comes to food, African food can easily hold it's own among the best known cuisines in the world African food is generally quite gentle with the likes of snails and rodents in west Africa, snakes in central Africa, monkeys, cats and dogs eaten in Nigeria and Ghana, termites, or even locusts eaten in Uganda being exceptions rather than a rule

Africa is perhaps known more for it's African Safaris and white sandy beaches but when it comes to food, African food can easily hold it's own among the best known cuisines in the world. African food is generally quite gentle with the likes of snails and rodents in west Africa, snakes in central Africa, monkeys, cats and dogs eaten in Nigeria and Ghana, termites, or even locusts eaten in Uganda being exceptions rather than a rule.

The traveler to Africa you will often find foods like pizza, burgers or at least good attempts at coming with something close to pizzas and burgers chicken and fries in most towns in Africa.

Most African travelers often find themselves counting familiar brands in Africa the likes of burger King, coca cola and many more. Americans are notorious at this.

As an African Safaris traveler should you want a taste of the local cuisine you will often find a lot and a variety depending on where you are in Africa.

By far the best known of Africa's finest traditional dishes are Moroccan, Ethiopian and Swahili dishes. Morocco offers tajines, couscous (possibly getting its inspiration from West Africa, where it's traditionally steamed in baobab leaves), great tasting soups and scrumptious sweets. In East Africa and along the coast Swahili cooking rules supreme, making loving use of herds and spices introduced into Africa from Arabia, India and the Far East, with seafood being especially good.

Ethiopian cuisine is in a class of its own: injera as it is known is the staple and is a large pancake from which diners which they use to scoop up dollops of highly spiced stews.

Seafood is prepared differently in different regions. In Zanzibar it is prepared spicy, in coconut sauce or stiffed with vegetables and cooked in tomato, in Senegal. In South Africa, Brits can truly feel at home with fish and chips off course minus the newspaper. In many parts of Africa especially in the countryside it's best to eat fish close to the places where they are caught.

For the meat eaters or carnivores as they like to be called, Kenya's carnivore restaurant in Nairobi is a great place to indulge. Here you can try game meat from impala steaks, hippo, ostrich to crocodile burgers which by the way taste either like fish or chicken depending on what the crocodiles which are often breed on crocodile farms were feed on.

In southern Africa namely South Africa, Namibia and Botswana popular barbecues feature all kinds of meat and Boerwurst sausages which are often washed down with good beer.

In rural Kenya smoked wild birds are also a popular with locals.

For those who are daring, South Africa offers culinary challenges from caterpillars fried to sheep and chicken heads all of which are reputed by locals anf foreigners alike to be delicious. For the not so daring, there are other indigenous delicacies such as biltong which consists of dried, salted meat, bobotie which is simply a much-improved version of Shepherd's pie and boerewors which is hand-made farm sausages, often grilled on an open flame.

In south Africa too as in other parts of Africa, those who prefer to play it safe will find that most restaurants offer a familiar global menu - which includes anything from hamburgers to sushi to Chinese in Chinese restaurants which are quite popular to spaghetti bolognaise.

Jerry Wanga is editor of the website that provides information on Africa Vacation and masai mara safari information African safari travelers. You can view more information on the website.