(Translated from French by JLB)
“Manger pour la vie, une cuisine africaine” is an atypical work in many ways. It is. Indeed, more than a classic cookbook. It was produced by women involved in an association of women living with HIV from sub-Saharan Africa: DA TI SENI, a member of RAAC-SIDA. It is as much a cookery book as it is a cultural one, a health tool and a guide to the association’s actions, and a good deed too, since the profits from its sale benefit the association.
“Manger pour la vie, une cuisine africaine”, a book by DA TI SENI
Thirty-four tablespoons of palm oil! 32 tablespoons of peanut or sunflower oil 1 Three Maggi cubes stuffed with salt. Some of the ingredients in the recipes presented in this book can make you sweat nutritionally. Odile Grigis, a nutritionist, who comments on them, points out for each one what poses a problem with a dedicated logo and what is an asset from a nutritional point of view (fresh vegetables, moderate use of fat or sugar, etc.). The aim of this book is to respect African culinary traditions, which make extensive use of oil, particularly for frying, a sustained use of Maggi cubes, powdered milk, groundnuts (including for drinks), but to combine the impact of recipes that are often old and healthy. In this book you will find recipes from Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Togo, Congo or Gabon, etc. Such as kondré de boeuf. The ndolé, the poulet directeur général, the cep bou dienn or – again – the saka-saka: all presented by women who cook them and participate in the association’s activities. Precise and easy to understand, the recipes, about forty in number, are particularly well presented: each page seems to have been thought out like a table. The great interest of this book also lies in the form of cultural transmission that it constitutes. Here, the cuisine is a pretext for the discovery of part of African culture and tradition, which finds an extension in France. The book is completed by nutritional advice, a presentation of some foods that are important for health and a presentation of the association’s flagship activities such as the Take Wings Garden. The dietary and art therapy workshops, etc. are also presented. Elegant. Singular in its approach, very pleasant to read, one can only recommend the discovery of this particularly successful book.
Editions Jane Le Besque
Authors, Albertine Pabingui-Gondjé, Florence Brunel and Jane Le Besque
