In West Africa, agriculture does not necessitate soil upturning. After deciding on a location in the forest near to the town, the ladies hacked away all the underbrush and saplings with long knives or matchets. The workers then proceed to fell the trees. These, with their lush foliage and branches intertwined by an overabundance of vines and lianos, blanket the acres of the designated space impenetrably and lie withering for two weeks.
Rice, fish, and tomato sauce make up a popular Senegalese cuisine today. Onions, cabbage, carrots, cassava, and peanut oil are common additions. It’s a one-pot meal that can be made with whatever vegetables you have on hand. This filling and delectable dish is a staple on every daily menu since it is always a wonderful choice.
The cuisine of Western Africa is noted for its unique ingredients and flavors, which frequently include a wide variety of plant-based dishes. A traditional dinner consists of a starchy staple cooked in a pot and served with a vegetable, fish, or meat-based sauce. Pulses are frequently present. Root crops like yams, cassava, sorghum, pearl millet, and maize are now among these starchy mainstays.
Pearl millet is primarily prepared as porridge in the northern Sahel and savanna zones, but fufu, a pounded mash made from tuber crops such as yam, is the major starch-rich element in the southern forest zone.
Eggplant, pumpkin, watermelon, and okra are indigenous West African veggies that can be found in practically every meal (used as a thickener for soups and stews). There is a wide range of Green leafy vegetables, both farmed and foraged, are eaten, however they are seldom known outside of Africa. Amaranth, roselle, and baobab tree leaves are among them.
It’s unclear how long all of these plants have been grown and eaten in the area. Domestication of plants has played a crucial part in human history. Many globally important species, such as pearl millet, cowpea, African yam, fonio (an ancient grain), and African rice, were domesticated in West Africa. The study of the origins and evolution of indigenous West African crops has worldwide implications, as it provides information on human adaptability and plant evolution. It is difficult, however, as they do not generally survive over archaeological timescales.
Analyzing organic residues preserved in antique ceramics is the only method to find out. Organic residue analysis of 458 archaic vessels was integrated with archaeobotanical data from 10 prehistoric Nok culture sites in Nigeria for this study. From roughly the middle of the second millennium BC until the last century BC, this culture lasted about 1,500 years.
Chemical evidence of a diverse range of plants was discovered in the Nok pottery. It’s impossible to say how many, but it’s likely that a wide range of leafy greens were processed alongside grains, pulses, and what were most likely yams, much as they are today. Lipid analysis, the method utilized, can now be added to the “toolkit” of procedures that can be used to identify plant exploitation in West Africa, giving a fuller picture of food preparation and ancient diet. This has been done elsewhere but it is the first in West Africa.
According to Julie Dunne, a University of Bristol Postdoctoral Researcher in Archaeology, “These exciting results have allowed us to go beyond the identification of meals thought to consist mainly of meat and starchy plants. We can now confirm, based on the highly diverse range of lipid profiles we found, the preparation of ancient meals combining vegetables, pulses, tubers and, possibly, herbs and spices, in prehistoric West Africa.
“The early invention of pottery around 10,000 years ago in this region, crucial in facilitating plant processing, suggests that West African plant cuisine may be thousands of years older than was thought. This question remains open for now, she added.”
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