With the number of innovation in the open food markets on the rise, more and more international brands are starting to adopt West African techniques, flavours and combining these with their own.
Product innovation includes some key ingredients used in most West African dishes like cassava, okra, plantain, moringa, kola nuts, yam, beans, sorghum, peanuts, ginger, scotch bonnet chillies, and fonio.
Even with the increasing number of people converting to different dietary changes and restrictions, West African cuisine does not seem fazed, thanks to their mainly plant-based and gluten-free dishes. Vegans and vegetarians can still enjoy a big serving of a West-African dish minus the guilt.
The rise of some renowned kitchen superstars from West Africa helped in the introduction of West African cuisines to the international food community in the UK and other western countries. The Ghanaian born Zoe Adjonyoh, for example, led the change in raising awareness on the diverse cuisines of her home country by starting her business and writing a book with the same name Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen. The owner of the first ever Nigerian fine dining restaurant with a Michelin star in the UK, Ikovi, used traditional Nigerian ingredients and combined them with the contemporary techniques used in the West and the result was a new and exciting fusion of flavours that appealed to the European market.
On the other side of the pond and spurred by racial unrest and demands for equity, Afro chefs are gaining access to capital, new media exposure, and more chances to open their own restaurants (even in Covid times). We’ll also see, in 2021, a bumper crop of African-American chefs’ cookbooks, renewed focus on ingredients of Southern cookery, and an exploration of the cuisines of West Africa. For soul food in America read “Rise” from Marcus Samuelsson … and for African cuisine bordering the Indian Ocean, read “In Bibi’s Kitchen” by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen.
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