For hundreds of yrs, food stuff on the African continent has been preserved with out the gain of refridgeration. How? This post describes four strategies of food items preservation typical in Africa.
1. Solar-drying
For quite a few Africans, the sunshine is an important factor in foodstuff preservation. Before long soon after the harvest, grains such as millet, maize, sorghum, inexperienced gram, and wheat, as very well as pulses this sort of as beans and peas are distribute out in the sunlight to dry. If wholly dried of dampness, these foodstuffs can previous a extremely long time – occasionally several years – if saved in a cool, dry spot and secured from pests.
Most households experienced a granary designed way above the floor, exactly where foodstuffs have been stored. In addition to drying, it was also popular to apply wooden ash to pulses like beans and peas to discourage insect infestation. The ash could easily be washed out before cooking the pulses.
Numerous varieties of veggies, tubers and fish can also be properly preserved in this way. Tubers this kind of as cassava or sweet potato could have to be sliced into skinny parts to aid drying.
2. Cigarette smoking
Smoking cigarettes is another essential strategy of meals preservation. Formerly, after the hunt, hunters smoked substantial amounts of the meat for simpler transport back again household, and also to protect it. It was frequent to smoke recreation meat, whilst domestic animals have been normally eaten contemporary immediately after slaughtering.
Using tobacco fish is nevertheless a quite vital strategy of preserving fish, utilised all above the continent.
3. Salting
Salt was normally used to foodstuffs in buy to protect them, in conjunction with sunlight-drying and smoking cigarettes. Several fisherman generously salt fish before solar-drying or smoking cigarettes it, to additional improve the likelihood that it will not decay. Salting was also applied to sure greens in the course of the sunshine-drying method.
4. Making use of unwanted fat
A several communities utilized fats to protect food stuff. These have been mostly communities that herded animals, this sort of as nomadic communities. For instance, amid the Somali, when a camel was slaughtered, component of the meat was cooked in generous amounts of body fat and salt. It was then saved for long run use. The meat remained acceptable for human use since of the significant amounts of fat in which it was cooked and stored, and the salt.
Several parts of Africa even now do not have the vital electrical infrastructure essential for sustained refridgeration. Common techniques of foodstuff preservation proceed to perform a crucial job in maintaining foodstuff edible for thousands and thousands of people today.
These solutions, these as sun-drying, smoking, salting and working with extra fat, have not only stood the test of time – they are also inexpensive and sustainable with no requiring much too significantly vitality.
