Stirring the Pot offers a chronology of African cuisine beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing from Africa’s original edible endowments to its globalization, tracing cooks’ use of new crops, spices, and New World imports. It highlighting the relationship between food and the culture, history, and national identity of Africans.
James C. McCann is a professor of history and chair of the Department of Archaeology at Boston University. He is winner of a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Distinguished Scholar of the American Society of Environmental History.
“A lively and engaging history of African food, cooking, and
culinary cultures found within the continent and beyond.
Indispensable reading for anyone interested in African history, the
African diaspora, food studies, and women's contributions to
culinary history.”
“In this compelling study, James C. McCann provides a profound and
novel way to examine history and historical change not only in
Africa but also in the Atlantic basin…. This book allows readers to
peek into the African cooking pot in order to better understand the
constituent parts and nuances of African cuisine, as shaped by
geography, history, trade across ecological zones, and migration
(forced and voluntary) across oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, and the
Mediterranean).”
*American Historical Review*
“(Stirring the Pot) makes the reader both intellectually and
physically hungry.”
*Canadian Journal of History*
“Stirring the Pot is a welcome addition to the sparse literature on
African history, food and foodways, and popular culture…. The book
is aimed at a wide audience, ranging from mature secondary-school
students through undergraduates and general readers, but graduate
students and academics will also find its detailed documentation
helpful.”
*Gastronomica*
“Published as part of an Africa in World History series brought out
by an academic press, Ohio University Press, and aimed primarily at
students and scholars, Stirring the Pot nonetheless considers a
large swath of the world’s foodways and history in a valuable and,
for many readers, new way. Despite the foodie fever currently
gripping the culture, there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot out
there about African cuisine….”
*Wilson Quarterly, “From the Editors”*
“(McCann’s) close reading of a feast offered in 1887 by Tatyu, the
wife of Ethiopian king Menelik II, is an exemplary investigation of
stat patronage and Ethiopian cuisine. The author’s use of details
is eye-catching…. There has been a desperate need for this kind of
study for over two decades, so McCann has done African studies a
service by writing such a readable book.”
*Notes & Records*
“The author of the Gourmand award-winning book Stirring the Pot is
one of the biggest experts when it comes to the agricultural and
cooking history of Africa.”
*Gourmand Magazine*
“The strongest part of (Stirring the Pot) is its resistance to any
fixed notion of ‘traditional’ or ‘authentic’ food, and McCann’s
recognition that understanding food requires bringing together
ecology, history, politics, and trade.”
*International Journal of African Historical Studies*
“Historian McCann alters the typical proportions of books on food,
with 27 select recipes supplementing generous portions of the
history of cuisine in Africa and beyond. The author emphasizes
disparate influences on Africa’s foodways, including encounters
between the continent’s peoples and states along with seminal
transformations wrought by post-1492 global circulation of crops….
Summing Up: Highly recommended.”
*Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries*
“Well-written, clear, and informative, Stirring the Pot provides a
compelling, readable history of food and cuisine in Africa… a
remarkable book.”
“For this huge undertaking, McCann focuses on the ways trade,
politics, colonialism, and diaspora have shaped a dynamic and
enduring gastronomic mélange. Maize, for example, came to Ethiopia
via the Arab Red Sea trade and to West Africa from the West Indies
in the 16th century, yet didn’t become the continent’s dominant
cereal crop until the 20th century. Cheap and filling, maize made
economic sense.”
*Wilson Quarterly, from the review*
“Stirring the Pot addresses the importance of food in interpreting
culture and social history in Africa and in those areas of the
world touched by African immigrants…. (A)n interesting and
informative book that will appeal to a broad audience and is worth
the read.”
*Popular Anthropology*
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