9781422277409

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The African Family Table

by D i ane B a i l e y

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The African Family Table The Chinese Family Table The Greek Family Table The Indian Family Table The Italian Family Table The Japanese Family Table The Mexican Family Table

The Middle Eastern Family Table The Native American Family Table The SouthAmerican Family Table The Thai Family Table

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The African Family Table

By Diane Bailey

MASON CREST

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Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

© 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

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First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4041-0 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-4042-7 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7740-9

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bailey, Diane, 1966- author. Title: The African family table / by Diane Bailey. Other titles: Connecting cultures through family and food. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, 2018. | Series: Connecting cultures through family and food | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053409| ISBN 9781422240427 (hardback) | ISBN 1422240428 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422277409 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, African--Juvenile literature. | Africans--Food--Juvenile literature. | Africans--Social life and customs--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC TX725.A35 B35 2018 | DDC 641.59/296073--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2017053409

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Introduction............................................................................................. 6 1. Getting Here. ............................................8 APPETIZER............................................................................ 20 2. Settling In................................................22 MAIN COURSE....................................................................... 32 3. Connecting..............................................34 SECOND COURSE...................................................................44 4. Reaching Back........................................48 DESSERT.................................................................................58 Find Out More......................................................................................62 Series Glossary of Key Terms..........................................................63 Index/Author........................................................................................ 64 Contents

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Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together addi- tional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

Introduction

T he story of all people begins in Africa. The earliest ancestors of humans lived on the continent severalmillionyears ago.Andabout 200,000 years ago, the first homo sa- piens —modern humans—evolved there. At almost 12 million square miles (31 million sq km), it’s an enormous continent that straddles the equator. Dense, dripping rain forests clustered in the center of the continent give way to the vast, dry expanses of sand of the Saha- ra Desert in the north. People live in a Mediterranean climate on the north coast and in semi-arid and temperate regions in the south. That geographical diversity has helped produce a huge amount of physical and cultural diversity, as well. Tens of thousands of years ago,

people began migrating through- out Africa. Eventually, about 60,000 years ago, they moved into Europe, Asia, and eventually the Americas. Sometimes these migrations were voluntary. At other times, especially from the 1600s through the 1800s, theywerenot, asmillions of African natives were shipped to other parts of the world and sold as slaves. Whatever the reasons or cir- cumstances for their movement, as Africans spread into different parts of the world, they left their mark in numerousways. Styles of musicand dance that grew out of traditional African culture, such as jazz and hip-hop, arenowpart of mainstream society. And all over the world, mod- ernwaysof eatinghave theirroots in Africa. Gumbo from the Caribbean,

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Introduction

pan-fried cornbread fromthe south- ern United States, and the couscous craze in France can all trace their history to Africa. Today, with more than 50 coun- tries, Africa is a fascinating blend

of diversityandunity. Its individual nations, and the regions theybelong to, each have distinct cultures, but they are tied together by a shared history. Whatever their differences, they are all still African.

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Getting Here

Words to Understand commodities raw materials or agricultural products that are bought and sold economic depressions periods of time in which the economy of a country or a region declines and money is worth less; wages fall and work is harder to find exploiting taking unfair advantage of infrastructure the basic organizational and physical (such as roads and power plants) structures needed to run a society restrictive presenting difficulties or limitations I t might be one of history’s most notable “food fights.” Sometime around the 14th century, two sons of an African king got into a fight with their father over palm wine. Was it about how to make it? (Hint: Start with the sap of a flavorful palm tree, like a coconut.) Was it over who deserved to receive a few bottles as a gift? Was it about who had, um, a bit too much? The details of this dust-up are fuzzy, but it didn’t end well. Fed up with his sons, the king disinherited themboth and selected his daughter to take over after he died.

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Africa has a long history of kingdoms, countries, and tribes. The rich tradition of African art is popular among 21st-century collectors.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

Which didn’t take long—his sons killed him. Meanwhile, a couple of kingdoms over, another youngmanwas denied his father’s throne. The king accused his son of being cowardly, although in truth he was just jealous of his son’s hunting skills. Realizing he had no future at home, the son set out for distant lands. He met the daughter of the other king (now in charge of her father’s land), married her, and went on to establish his own powerful kingdom. In doing so, Chibinda Ilunga became one of Africa’smost famous immigrants, writing his name into history. The Slave Trade B efore the year 1500, people all over Africa were migrants. Some, like Chibinda Ilunga, moved within the continent. Others crossed into Europe and Asia. Some were chasing power or wealth, but most were likely just seeking a modest version of a better life. Unfortunately, much of the history of Africa has a sadder story. As people fromother countries beganexploring—and exploiting —the resourc- es of Africa, humans became one of the top commodities . People were captured to be sold into slavery. They were rounded up and put in chains and pens. Some slaves were shipped north, to areas such as Portugal or the Netherlands. Others went to the Middle East, India, and Asia. The best-known story of African slavery, however, is the trans-Atlantic trade that brought slaves to the Americas. In a complex pattern known as the “triangle trade,” the Europeans brought goods south to Africa, where they sold them and used the money to buy slaves. During the second part of the cycle, the “middle passage,” slaves were shipped to the Americas, first to South and Central America and later to the United States. There,

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Getting Here

The horrible stain of slavery remains an unresolved issue in relations between many African Americans and white Americans.

the slaves were sold so Europeans could buy rawmaterials such as sugar and cotton. They carried that cargo back toEurope, where it was processed into manufactured goods. Then the horrible cycle began again. The slave trade flourished for more than three centuries, from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s. During that time, it’s estimated that more than 12 million Africans, mostly from the western and central parts of the continent, were forcibly taken from their homes. Some two million of themdied during the journey, while the remaining ones went into unpaid

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

forced labor, mining silver inPeru, raising coffee inBrazil, growing sugar in the Caribbean, and tending rice, cotton, and tobacco in the southern United States. Most lived lives of great poverty, stress, and danger. ANewEra I n theUnitedStates, the extended brutality of slavery eventually resulted in a violent conflict: the Civil War. After this bloody war ended in 1865, slaverywas abolished, although it took another century for conditions for AfricanAmericans to substantially improve.Manywhite people, especial- ly in the South, still thought of blacks as inferior. Blacks had nowhere

After the Civil War ended, African Americans still faced poverty, discrimination, and want, even as they worked to “rise up.”

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Getting Here

The Middle Passage

The captains of ships that carried slaves to the New World did not care whether their passengers were comfortable. Slaves were kept in miserable conditions, crammed body-to-body in tiny spaces. They often did not have enough room to sit up, or have a place to go to the bathroom. But the captains did have to keep their cargo alive, and healthy enough that they could be sold for a profit. That meant they

near the same opportunities, rights, and freedoms as whites enjoyed. Not surprisingly, only a small number of native Africans immigrated to the United States during the century after the end of the Civil War, and most of those were white people from South Africa. By the 1960s, though, the world was changing. Up through the first half of the 20th century, many countries in Africa were under colonial had to feed them—and what’s more, they had to feed them something they would actually eat. Ship captains stocked corn for slaves who came from present-day Angola; rice for those from the areas of Senegal and The Gam- bia; and yams for slaves taken from modern Nigeria. Traders also noted that slaves had a “good stomach for beans.” A few lemons or limes were added to prevent scurvy, and occasionally some fish caught during the journey. The traders’ strategy did not always work. Captives often went on hunger strikes during the voyage, preferring to die rather than enter a life of slavery.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

rule, meaning they were controlled by the governments of other nations, notably Britain and France. As colonial rule weakened, these nations gained their independence. However, many of themwere not prepared for self-rule. They did not have the institutions or infrastructure to manage the challenges of government. Civil wars broke out. Poverty and violence wracked the continent. Many people were looking for a way out, but they also still had strong ties to the countries that had governed them for so long. For example, Al- geria, a country inNorthAfrica, was colonized by France in the 1830s and remained that way until the 1960s. Algerian immigrants beganmoving to France around World War I, when the country needed laborers to help in thewar effort. Anotherwave of immigration came in the 1960s. Despite no longer being officially tied to France, many Algerians decided to draw on their shared history and languagewith France, and begin new lives there.

The Triangle Trade documentary