African recipes
Prefaced by Professor Jean-Louis Touraine, who chairs the HIV/AIDS study group at the National Assembly, this magnificent book unites the choral voices of a group of “standing women” gathered within the Da Ti Séni association, based in Lyon, and the hospital practitioners who care for them. How can we live and eat well when we are African, when we live in France and have to live with a virus that is certainly curbed by treatment, but which is potentially dangerous?
This recipe book of a plural continent is a delight for the eyes thanks to the work of the artist Jane Le Besque, who magnificently embellishes each page, but also for the taste buds, stimulated by this farandole of Senegalese, Congolese, Malian, Central African dishes… Like mother Simone with her delicious “Poulet directer général”, each woman gives her recipe, always full of flavours, in the image of African gastronomy. A dietician takes care of the nutritional balance. Produced for the benefit of the association, Manger pour la vie also reminds us that 37 million people are still living with HIV in the world, including 26 million in sub-Saharan Africa. Offering the conviviality of a shared kitchen is stronger than adversity.
Manger pour la vie, une Cuisine africaine, by Albertine Pabingui Gondjé, Florence Brunel and Jane Le Besque, Editions Jane Le Besque, 76 pages, 18 euros.
