The African Foodways Heritage Archive
Documenting African food as infrastructure, science, labor, and memory
Archive at a Glance
This is an archival collection, not a recipe site.
Each entry in this archive follows AFHA standards: historical context, botanical analysis, cultural significance, and technical documentation. From the brass wire that bought food for Stanley's expedition to the fermentation science of Kisra flatbread, we treat African food as primary historical evidence.
We publish tightly researched archival entries. Each piece answers specific historical or anthropological questions through the lens of food, with clear arguments, cited sources, and narratives connecting meals to larger societal forces.
AFHA Archival Collections NEW
Recently enhanced entries following AFHA archival standards: historical context, botanical analysis, cultural significance.
- Terraces Before Rockets: Indigenous African Farming and the Deep History of Agriculture
- Liberian Rice Bread – Indigenous Grain Transformation
- Kisra – Sudanese Fermented Flatbread & Cross-Cultural Analysis
- Msir – North African Preserved Lemon Technique
- Fried Obuunu Plantains – Botanical & Culinary Analysis
- Ostrich Eggs & Nyimo – Exceptional Food Sources
- Amaranth – The Weed Paradox in African Foodways
- Shea Butter – Food vs. Cosmetic Standards
- Lablab Bean – Dual-Nature Legume Documentation
These entries represent the transformation of this archive from blog to scholarly resource, with enhanced metadata, structured data, and archival formatting.
Staples, Survival & Food Systems
How everyday foods carry economies, shocks, and resilience.
Labor, Gender & the Cost of Feeding
Food begins long before cooking — in bodies, risk, and time.
Tools, Technique & Material Knowledge
The objects and movements that turn raw matter into food.
Plants, Animals & Ecological Embodiment
What Africans eat — and what eating reveals about environment.
Belief, Language & Meaning in Food
Where food crosses into cosmology, proverb, and prayer.
Displacement, Power & Global Forces
How colonialism, aid, and institutions reshape diets.
Meals, Recipes & Living Traditions
Recipes as cultural documents, not just instructions.
- Senegalese Chicken Vermicelli (Thiébou Yapp)
- Maggi Cubes: The Swiss Invention That Became African
- Bamia na Nazi: An Indian Ocean Culinary Map
- The Integrated Life of Idzila, Sorghum, and Sustenance
- Sudanese Moukhbaza – Fermented Food Tradition
- Offal & Chicken Feet – Nose-to-Tail Eating
- Chicken Feet Masterclass – In-Depth Technique
This is an archival collection.
It is a curated record of how Africans feed themselves — and what that reveals about history, ecology, and survival.
Entries marked with follow AFHA archival standards with full historical, botanical, and cultural documentation.
Our work is for researchers, students, and anyone who believes the history of a plate is as complex as the history of a nation.
Next Quarterly Acquisition: February 2025
