Jambo!
The theme of this column is African food, which is something I wanted to share with my fellow members the most!
But, before we get into talking about African food, there had been two tragedies that occurred in Africa in the past month that led to many victims. And I would like to briefly share the tragedies with you so that the victims will be remembered by more people.

 On March 10, Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 scheduled to fly from Addis Ababa, Capital of Ethiopia, to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, crashed in 6 minutes since takeoff. All 149 passengers and 8 crew members from 35 countries were killed, including 19 UN employees who worked for the development of Africa and environmental protection. The Ethiopian Airlines is the only airlines connecting Africa to Korea. It was also an airline I frequently used, making this incident a bigger shock. It has been tentatively confirmed that the crash was caused by a malfunction of the plane's software, but it will take time until the investigation is officially concluded.

 Countries in Southern Africa are on alert. Intense Tropical Cyclone Idai hit the southeast region of Africa on March 15. As of March 29, 493 people have died in Mozambique and 181 killed in Zimbabwe, with almost 2million suddenly becoming victims of flood. Almost 90% of Mozambique's port city Beira, which has been the most affected by Cyclone Idai, has been flooded and it faces many challenges in securing food for survivors for the one year to come. Secondary damages are spreading quickly with more than 500 patients being diagnosed with cholera as of today, 2 weeks since Cyclone Idai swept across Southern Africa. It is also still unclear when these cities will be able to recover from the damages. And so, there may be more victims at the time when you are reading this column.

 Please send your prayers and thoughts to the many victims and families who have lost their loved ones to the two sudden tragedies.

 Now, let's put aside the two sad news for a moment as we fall for the charm of Africa! ☺

 It is not easy to explain Africa through the lens of one theme as it is the second largest continent in the world, home to around 3,000 tribes with almost 2,000 languages used. Cultures differ among tribes and according to language, and of course, there exists a diverse range of food culture. Therefore, it would be difficult to explain the food culture of the entire African continent in detail, but I would like to share with you the key representative cuisines of regions that share similar characteristics, climate and history overall.

 Now, shall we take a trip around Africa through the lens of taste? ☺

 Central Africa that straddles across the Tibesti Mountains in the North to the tropical rain forests along the basin of the Congo River was not influenced by outside cuisines until the late 19th century. The region uses ingredients that came into Central Africa through the Columbian exchange that occurred along with the slave trade in the early 16th century as well as cassava, peanuts, and chili pepper in their traditional dishes.

 The staple food of Central Africa is the plantain, a type of banana that is less sweet, and the cassava, which is known as tapioca in Korea. People of this region enjoy the cassava mashed into 'fufu' like rice cakes, with a side of roasted meat and sauce. The types of sauce served with fufu or steamed plantain are vegetable stew made with spinach, tomato and peanut butter, peanut stew made of chicken and spices like okra, and sauce made of the Bambara groundnut. The meat is usually beef or chicken. A meal that includes the fufu or plantain together with a side of stew and roasted meat can easily be found across Africa. And it is a simple dish with a balanced nutrition of carbohydrate, protein and fat.

 East African cuisine differs according to different regions.

 The traditional cuisine of the nomads in African savanna uniquely does not use meat. Livestock such as cows, sheep, pigs and goats are considered as currency and therefore are seen as a way to build wealth, not used for food. The tradition of some East African regions (including the Maasai people in Kenya) is to consume not the meat of the cow, but its milk and blood. Farmers living in other regions eat various grains and vegetables that they grow as staple food. In East Africa, there is the Ugali made of corn as a dish similar to Central Africa's fufu. In Uganda, the green and hard banana Matooke is the main source of carbohydrate.

 Around 1,000 years ago, merchants of Oman and Yemen settled in the Swahili Coast (East African area that uses the Bantu language), greatly influencing the region's cuisine. People of this region enjoy rice with Persian-style spices, saffron, cloves, cinnamon and pomegranate juice. Since then, the British and Indians settled along the Swahili Coast, bringing in their staple food such as vegetable curry, lentil soup, chapati, and various pickles, and the local cuisine changed too. As a result, people in East Africa not only eat Ugali, but also consume bread-like food such as chapati and rice as sources of carbohydrate.

 The East African region called the "Horn of Africa" refers to the horn-shaped area in Africa and includes Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The most well-known cuisine of the Horn of Africa is the traditional dish of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Main examples include the Tsebhi (stew), Injera (a flatbread made with fermented teff flour, wheat or millet), and Hilbet (paste made from legumes). The way people eat these dishes differs according to region, but generally, you place the Injera on a wide tray and put various stews and pastes on top for a group of people around the table to tear the Injera and eat with the stew and paste on top. Ethiopia does not use pork or clams in the dish – both forbidden by Ethiopian Orthodox church. And no cutlery is used when eating the dish. People use their hands to tear the Injera and then use the Injera to eat the meat or the sauce.

 One can find the roots to the cuisine of North Africa located along the Mediterranean to ancient North African empires, especially, Egypt.

 North African food was influenced due to continuous visits by traders, travelers and invaders over hundreds of years. Along with the Phoenicians' sausage, wheat and its by-product semolina brought in by the people of Carthage, and olive and olive oil brought in by Romans, people of North Africa also gained different spices from the Arabs, which all led to today's traditional food of North Africa.

 Most North African countries' traditional food is similar in ingredients and form. The most common staple food is the Couscous – crushed wheat slightly bigger than flour in the process of milling wheat – and semolina. Couscous is served with curry made with various ingredients including eggs, beef, chicken or eggplant, or stew. Morocco's Tajine is also a main North African dish, which refers to a stew dish in Morocco but an omelet or quiche-like dish in Tunisia. The Morocco Tajine is named after the earthenware pot used for cooking the stew. It is a stew made out of meat and vegetables in a pot with a sharp-looking lid. People in regions where water is scarce and difficult to find like in the Sahara Desert of North Africa use earthenware pots like Tajine to cook in order to cook with minimum amount of water by using cooking utensils that capture the moisture of the steam back into the stew.

 Due to geographical nature, North African ethnicity, religion and culture were influenced by the Arab world, which led to its people using many spices and enjoying dishes with diverse colors and flavors.

 The South African cuisine is sometimes called the "rainbow cuisine" because it is a mixture of various dishes of different cultures from native Africans, Europe and even Asia.

 The staple food of an average South African household is a corn porridge and meat stew of a deep flavor called the Pap. This dish is known to have been made from the nomadic life and growing crops by native Africans before colonization by white people. For many South Africans, meat is an important ingredient. They enjoy Braai (all barbecue meat) and a type of dried, cured meat called Biltong. As many different races live in the region, Indians' traditional food and France's traditional wine are also popular dishes.

 If you ask what the national food is of West African countries, you will hear Jollof rice immediately as an answer. The Jollof rice is a risotto-like rice cooked with tomatoes, onions and meat broth until there is very little sauce left. The rice is served together with soup, meat stew and/or salad. There are also many other ways of consuming carbohydrate in West Africa. People of this region also enjoy the cuisine of neighboring region including Fufu, Banku (fermented corn and tapioca dough), Kenkey (fermented cornbread), Foutou (dough made with tapioca, plantain, and yam), and Couscous. They also mix various spices in the meat.

 Another popular dish is the Egusi Soup, which is thick soup with gourd seeds. This dish is made in a way that you can consume both the good fat and protein of the seeds. People also create new recipes by adding tomatoes, spinach, meat and fish to create a more nutritious and delicious soup.

 Out of African cuisine, I personally like Ethiopian food the most. So, I visited Club Zion in Itaewon, the one Ethiopian restaurant in Seoul. The food tasted slightly different from what I remember, but I could enjoy Ethiopian food. This restaurant, which only serves Ethiopian food on Fridays and Saturdays, uses fermented rice to cook Injera instead of the teff flour because it is difficult to find the ingredient in Korea. The Ethiopian dish served at Club Zion, where I ordered the meat combination menu to try out different types of sauces, did not offer anything fancy or interesting but was enough to experience the taste of Ethiopia. You will be able to experience a new taste and flavor that you have never tried before when you take the slightly sour dough to try the spicy beef curry and the slightly salty chicken stew. If you find yourself wanting to try something special, I recommend you try the exotic Ethiopian food at Club Zion in Itaewon on a Friday or Saturday night!

 If Koreans have pork belly roast, South Africans have the Boerewors sausage braai. If you want to try out a South African meal, the meal of people who enjoy braai (South African barbeque) with their families on weekends, I recommend the Braai Republic in Itaewon! Arriving at the restaurant, following a foreign waiter to your table and taking a look around the place will give you a sense of being in a different country with its items of South Africa used to decorate the restaurant. I tasted the South African special drink the waiter recommended before I tried the dish, which made the steak and the sausage taste better. And the mashed sweet potato and cream spinach was amazing too! How about a world trip through your taste buds by experiencing South Africa's braai in Itaewon as it would be very difficult to fly to South Africa on the other side of the world?

 This column might have seemed a bit solemn because of the tragic news I shared before I introduced the delightful and delicious dishes to interest your five senses. But I hope that the brief introduction of the different types of food categorizing the vast and wide African continent into four regions and African food you can find in Korea was an interesting enough subject to you. It is unfortunate that there are not a lot of African restaurants in Korea so I cannot introduce cuisines of other countries to you as a place to stimulate your taste buds. (It's too bad I cannot show you the taste of Uganda cuisine ☹) If I have the opportunity to visit a new African restaurant that opens this year, I promise to remember to recommend the restaurant to you in another column!

 Hakuna Matata ☺ 