Asian Contribution to African Foodways: Plantains Boiled, Grilled, and Fried

Fried plantains with fruit, several plantain recipes below

In the midst of a series on Asian influences on African and African Diaspora foodways. Today I am going to talk about plantains which are indigenous to India. We know that after Asian traders introduced them to Africa during the Christian era, cooks gradually made them a staple across West and Central Africa. African cooks steamed, boiled, grilled, and fried plantains. Some recipes call for green ones which taste more like a potato or you they ate them overripe in they are sweet. African women made plantains into flour for breads and fritters, drinks, fried chips, and as fufu. Like other Asian plants, Africans introduced them to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. For example, in the seventeenth century, most British planters in Barbados fed enslaved Africans rations of potatoes, a thick gruel made from kidney beans and occasionally some meat when an ox died. The slaves hated their rations and loudly protested until their masters added a regular portion of plantains to their meals. Below are a host of great plantain recipes:


Plantain recipes from Africa, the Caribbean, and America: http://www.grabemsnacks.com/plantain-recipes.html#pr