1 See for example T. L ewicki , 1974. 1This collection of papers aims to present the advances in knowledge of the social and cultural construction of food practices in Africa before the 20th century. In general, the history of food and foodways is a relatively young field of research, recently renewed through its encounter with the history of globalization. Nonetheless, Africa still remains marginal in this field, even if historians of Africa explored this subject very early on, at the same time as it was being developed in Europe.

2 C. G okee , A.L. L ogan (dir.), 2014. 2In formulating our call for papers for this collection, we wished to highlight the methodological contribution of this field to African history as a whole. Writing the history of food and foodways in Africa, and particularly for the periods before the 20th century, often draws upon other disciplines, such as archaeology and comparative linguistics, which also raise questions concerning the distant past. Archaeological research is becoming increasingly concerned with relatively recent periods, confronting data with texts and oral investigations, and it promises to significantly renew our understanding of food practices. The vitality of the archaeology of historical periods in Africa in the field of foodways contributes substance to this collection, which follows close behind the publication this year of an issue on the same topic in the African Archaeological Review. For historians, the study of food also implies a new reading and analysis of the most classical sources through the lens of new questions. Contrary to common opinion, food and foodways are not the poor cousin of African historical records, particularly before 1900; in fact, the opposite is often true, A large number of the sources on this history, traveller’s tales, even favour this topic, which is conducive to long and sometimes very technical discussions. Even in the context of literate cultures, in Africa as elsewhere, these types of narratives contain a large part of the information on past food practices. The history of food and foodways thus provides an opportunity to critically reread these texts, evaluating not only the role of the subjective perspective of the travellers, their cultural baggage, and their lived experience, but also the information obtained from their hosts, who the intended recipients of the texts were, and the literary or historical status of these descriptions.

3We therefore set out some of the materials and methods required for the writing of a history of foodways in Africa before the 20th century. This undertaking is all the more necessary as it clearly establishes the commitment shared by all the contributors to this journal issue to write the social and cultural history of daily life in Africa, which was first written in Europe about European countries.

4Over the last decade or so, the literature on the history of foodways outside of Europe has multiplied. This can be credited to the general effort to globalize subjects formerly restricted to the more classical regions of Western historical research: Europe, the Mediterranean and the Americas.

3 F. B raudel , 1961.

F. B , 1961. 4 M. A ymard , 1975.

M. A , 1975. 5 J.-J. H ermadinquer , 1968; E. A shtor , 1968.

J.-J. H , 1968; E. A , 1968. 6 M. M ontanari , 2010, p. 68-71.

M. M , 2010, p. 68-71. 7 Before authoring, in 1992, the seminal work Chronique de Platine: pour une gastronomie historique, (...)

Before authoring, in 1992, the seminal work Chronique de Platine: pour une gastronomie historique, (...) 8 G. T huillier , 1977. 5The path leading to today has been remarkable. Foodways as a historical topic originated in the Annales School, which was prevalent in the European, and then American, university context from the 1960s to the 1980s. Although it was supported by respected historians such as Fernand Braudel—who promoted this research topic as early as 1961 —and Maurice Aymard, it has at times been denigrated. After an initial phase of analysing the data on foodways through the methods of serial history, which largely facilitated its incorporation into more common research themes by providing it with an aura of academic rigour, it branched off from quantitative and economic history to become more cultural—since the manner in which one eats is the result of a choice, and taste is a “cultural product”. The history of foodways is thus seen by those who practise it as the polar opposite of event-history and history “from the top” of societies. It is indeed difficult to go any “lower”, since food is a general phenomenon in the strict sense, meaning that it is common to everyone. This is a feature of this field which is shared with hygiene and sexuality. Moreover, it is no accident that the true founder in France of the history of food and foodways, Jean-Louis Flandrin, first established his reputation in the field of sexuality. The historical approach of these three fields constitutes the foundations of what historians such as Guy Thuillier in the 1970s called the “history of daily life”. This was an underground history that was little known, partly because it was insufficiently recorded but mainly because it was considered secondary by both university researchers—who left these subjects to “local erudites”—and by people in the past.

9 An old French term used to designate the supervisor of formal table service and etiquette in wealt (...)

An old French term used to designate the supervisor of formal table service and etiquette in wealt (...) 10 Y. V erdier , 1983, p. 261.

Y. V , 1983, p. 261. 11 P. O ry , 1998, p. 37-49. 6Often relegated to women, the activities of cooking and serving food, in the context of daily life outside of aristocratic circles, were ubiquitous but rarely praised. Unlike officiers de bouche and other masters of cuisine, the woman cook in many ancient societies did not really have a “profession” or “artisan status”. This social status, which is not as well defined as others, sometimes makes her difficult to identify in the historical records. Consumption itself, though it has been highly acclaimed, especially in the writings of French gastronomes in the 19th century, most often remains in the private domain. And it almost requires “breaking and entering” to explore, especially in Europe, the food practices of certain social classes through their account books and inventories after death.

12 B. L aurioux , 1988.

B. L , 1988. 13 B. R osenberger , 1980, p. 483.

B. R , 1980, p. 483. 14 C. G inzburg , 1980. And more recently, M. M ontanari , 2009. 7The cultural turning point of the 1980s, which revitalized the study of recipes and cooking books, clearly detached the history of food from its first ambitions, with two significant consequences. On the one hand, it often ended up repeating the pitfalls of elitism by paying much more attention to the foodways of social and political elites than to those of the lower classes. On the other hand, it gained finesse in the objects analysed by investigating technical issues, commensality and its evolution through time, and the expression of social hierarchies through foodways. Some historians became interested in the diets of the lower classes, particularly those of farmers, not only from a quantitative and economic perspective but also as a cultural object. “Each place, each time, each social class has its source of grain flour”, wrote Bernard Rosenberger, contributor to this issue, in 1980 on the subject of substitute foods in modern Morocco. Food thus became an important part of the analysis of past societies at the micro scale—moreover, it is one of the topics most discussed in the historiography of the Italian microstoria.

8Due to the relative scarcity and dispersion of historical records, particularly for the periods before the 20th century, investigations into the history of foodways in Africa pose a multitude of problems already encountered by historians of Europe. In methodological terms, this research is characterized by a scarcity or total absence of “practical records”. In most of our study areas, for the periods concerned, there are neither inventories nor account or provisioning books, nor even cookbooks, which were extensively studied in Europe. Nonetheless, the absence of the latter motivates historians of Africa to focus on the descriptions that enable them to shed light, with the necessary critical hindsight, on commensality, techniques, food production, the implications of religion and politics, and the dietary regime of the different social classes—lower ones in particular. The methods and materials of the food history of Africa thus have much in common with those of the food history of rural populations in Europe: traveller’s tales, vocabulary analysis, archaeology, and particularly archaeobotany and zooarchaeology. The difficulties presented by the records in these different areas present challenges to researchers, as well as an incentive to explore new sources and procedures.

15 See E. K islinger , 1996; B. R osenberger , 1996 (the English edition of this book was published in 19 (...)

See E. K , 1996; B. R , 1996 (the English edition of this book was published in 19 (...) 16 I. de Garine (dir.), 1991.

I. (dir.), 1991. 17 B. R osenberger , 1999.

B. R , 1999. 18 H. B alfet , 1999; S. B ahuchet , 1999. 9L’Histoire de l’alimentation, a reference work published in 1996 by Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari and translated into several languages, limited its scope to extra-European regions: to Christians in the Orient and Arab-speaking countries. It is true that until the 2000s, the European historiographic perspective on food in Africa was primarily based on the discourse, largely anchored in presentism, of anthropologists and agronomists. At the very moment of the constitution in Western Europe and the United States of a “school” of the cultural history of food, the book Les changements des habitudes et des politiques alimentaires en Afrique: aspects des sciences humaines, naturelles et sociales (1991) was published under the direction of the anthropologist Igor de Garine. Emphasis was thus placed on the role of food choices (and even “food politics”), rejecting once and for all from the academic sphere a determinism that was still dominant in the field when the study concerned the material life of African societies. The historical perspective is nonetheless very marginal in this work, which was intended to be of topical interest. Elsewhere, Tables d’hier, tables d’ailleurs, published in 1999 under the direction of Jean-Louis Flandrin and Jane Cobbi, is symptomatic of the division of labour between historians at work in Europe and the Arab-Muslim World, and anthropologists deploying the purely ahistorical approaches of foodways in Sub-Saharan Africa—and also, in this case, Asia (India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia). As the chapter in this book dedicated to Central African Pygmies (by Serge Bahuchet) perfectly illustrates, the attention is focused on the meal, its practical and symbolic organization and its social role. As such, the work has the significant merit of considering the complexity of the food cultures inside and outside of Europe at the same level.

19 J.-P. C hrétien , 1979; J.-P. C hrétien , 1988; J.-P. C hrétien , 1998.

J.-P. C , 1979; J.-P. C , 1988; J.-P. C , 1998. 20 C.-H. P errot , 1990; C.-H. P errot , 1998.

C.-H. P , 1990; C.-H. P , 1998. 21 M. C hastanet , 1983; M. C hastanet , 1992; M. C hastanet (dir.), 1998.

M. C , 1983; M. C , 1992; M. C (dir.), 1998. 22 D. J uhé-Beaulaton , 1990; D. J uhé-Beaulaton , 1998.

D. J , 1990; D. J , 1998. 23 In the unsettled context of the 1980s, hunger in Africa was the incentive for several historical w (...)

In the unsettled context of the 1980s, hunger in Africa was the incentive for several historical w (...) 24 Tastes and social markers that we attempt to maintain in times of shortage, even if by words alone (...)

Tastes and social markers that we attempt to maintain in times of shortage, even if by words alone (...) 25 M. C hastanet , F.-X. F auvelle -A ymar , D. J uhé-Beaulaton (dir.), 2002.

M. C , F.-X. F -A , D. J (dir.), 2002. 26 J.C. M c C ann , 2009. Significantly, this work contained no references to the contributions of the Fr (...) 10It is in this context that the first studies of the history of food in Africa were developed in France, at the Centre de recherches africaines. In the writings of historians such as Jean-Pierre Chrétien, Claude-Hélène Perrot, Monique Chastanet (co-editor of this issue) and Dominique Juhé-Beaulaton (contributor to this issue), the general theme of the history of food is often addressed through the history of plants, landscapes, and food crises, in particular for the early modern and modern periods. Their studies are based on a methodology that combines a historical critique of written and oral records, long-term participatory observation, ethnobotanical and zooarchaeological inquiries, and agronomic knowledge. The context contributes both to the development of a postcolonial history of Africa, attentive to those who would much later become the subalterns of Indian and then Anglo-Saxon historiography, and to studies of “development”. The question of agricultural practices is thus central. This is addressed from the perspective of innovations linked to the circulation of plants and to cultivation methods, as well as to subsistence crises and famines—the latter two being significant in both the present and the past of the societies studied. However, through the lens of these questions, it is above all a cultural history that is being written and one particularly attentive to the choices of the populations concerned and the construction of tastes and consumption habits. When Cuisine et société en Afrique: histoire, saveurs, savoir-faire was published in 2002, under the direction of Monique Chastanet, François-Xavier Fauvelle and Dominique Juhé-Beaulaton, the term “cuisine”, which implies a cultural construction, in contrast to the terms “diet” or “food”, became frequent in the vocabulary of the history of Africa in a manner that was previously almost unknown. This book remained almost the only one to highlight this historical research topic in Africa until the publication of Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine, by American historian and environmentalist James C. McCann, in 2009.

27 H. L evenstein , 2003 [1988].

H. L , 2003 [1988]. 28 A.W. C rosby , 1972.

A.W. C , 1972. 29 S.W. M intz , 1985.

S.W. M , 1985. 30 J.A. C arney , 2001.

J.A. C , 2001. 31 F.D. O pie , 2008.

F.D. O , 2008. 32 L.C. C ascudo , 1963.

L.C. C , 1963. 33 R. E arle , 2012; R.L. P anegassi , 2013. 11Since the 1980s, the field of the history of food has developed considerably in the United States. The initiator of this research, Harvey Levenstein, author of an essential book on the economic, social and ideological origins of American food culture, claims his filiation from the French and British historical “schools”. But the American approach to the history of food rapidly distinguished itself, probably because its national terrain is an epicentre of the history of contemporary globalization, by its interest in the circulation of food products and manners of cultivating and cooking them. At the heart of this research question there is of course the Columbian exchange, the both biological and cultural “exchange” between the Old and New World opened by the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492, and discussed in 1972 by Alfred W. Crosby in a seminal work. The foodways question, within the conceptual construction of an “Atlantic space”, was first addressed through research conducted by the anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz, who shed light on the manner in which colonial sugar agriculture shaped the social structures of foodways in modern Europe. While Africa remained in the background in the works of Crosby and Mintz, it entered the minds of historians with the development of Afro-American studies. In 2001, the historian Judith A. Carney made an impact with the publication of her thesis recounting the manner in which rice cultivation was introduced into the Americas, and specifically South Carolina. Far from having been introduced by Europeans, as the southern racist, pro-slavery ideology liked to imagine, it was largely a product of the agricultural and culinary practices imported by Africans who were brought to the continent as slaves. This academic research appeared at the same time as mainstream literature on soul food became popular in the United States, attesting to a growing interest in the “African origins” (as well as Amerindian) of Afro-American cuisine. Concerning Latin America, in the 1960s Luís da Câmara Cascudo emphasised the influence of African heritage in the cuisine of northeast Brazil. Revitalized in the light of global history and the new history of foodways, the perspectives opened by the Brazilian folklorist were recently enriched by works on the social frameworks of African slaves’ food habits in South America.

34 J.C. M c C ann , 2012.

J.C. M C , 2012. 35 J.C. M c C ann , 2012, p. 206-207.

J.C. M C , 2012, p. 206-207. 36 K. R ay , 2012; K.J. C wiertka , Y. C hen , 2012.

K. R , 2012; K.J. C , Y. C , 2012. 37 K.J. C wiertka , 2006; K.J. C wiertka , 2008.

K.J. C , 2006; K.J. C , 2008. 38 K. R ay , T. S rinivas , 2012, p. 4.

K. R , T. S , 2012, p. 4. 39 On the composite aspects of Sahelian foodways, see especially M. C hastanet , 2009; M. C hastanet , 20 (...)

On the composite aspects of Sahelian foodways, see especially M. C , 2009; M. C , 20 (...) 40 J. P restholdt , 2008.

J. P , 2008. 41 See in particular L. C ollingham , 2009 [2005]. 12In a recent publication on the global historiography of foodways, James C. McCann presents a mixed assessment of the English-language historiography of foodways in Africa. On the one hand, he notes the persistent absence of Africa in broad-ranging publications on the history of food, and on the other, its confinement to the margins of research on Afro-American foodways. He specifically points out that the few historical studies conducted in recent years were constructed outside the “culturalist” scheme of the 1980s. Food is thus considered only as an exchanged “commodity”, while its construction as a cultural object is rarely investigated. This observation contrasts with that made in the other chapters of the book, in particular concerning South Asia and the Far East. Indeed, for these two regions, a history is currently being written, above all a contemporary one, that centres on the study of the construction of national and transnational identities through foodways. The work of Katarzyna J. Cwiertka comes to mind, addressing the “national cuisines” of Japan and Korea, influenced by Japanese imperialism, colonial society, the Cold War, and now the reflection of their international expansion. Also relevant is the work of Indian anthropologists and historians of food, who also analyse the “return” influence of globalization on the foodways of the sub-continent’s middle classes, “notably naming, codifying and standardizing the [food] practices that middle class people of the previous periods would rarely have considered”. These contemporary Asian investigations can contribute to the study of the food practices of Africans in the past, particularly in the interface zones (such as the Atlantic zone, the Sahel, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean), where the cuisines can result from both borrowings and a desire for distinction —as is the case in the rest of the material culture. Furthermore, most African regions share a colonial period with some Asian regions, which contributed greatly to the categorizing of foodways and their designation within new representational frameworks. Another problem linked to the encyclopaedic literature in this research field is that the presupposed cultural geography of African food practices tends to divide African cuisines into categories such as “West African” and “East African”, all well separated from “North African” (included in this issue).

42 M. C hastanet (dir.), 1998.

M. C (dir.), 1998. 43 S. B ahuchet , G. P hilipson , 1998; F. C loarec -H eiss , P. N ougayrol , 1998; R.M. B lench , 1998.

S. B , G. P , 1998; F. C -H , P. N , 1998; R.M. B , 1998. 44 The most recent synthesis on the subject is J.C. M c C ann , 2005.

The most recent synthesis on the subject is J.C. M C , 2005. 45 S.C. W alshaw , 2010.

S.C. W , 2010. 46 H. d’Almeida Topor , 2006. See also the chapter of M. M ontanari , 1995, devoted to foodways in Europ (...) 13The history of foodways in Africa has opened several new research directions through which it contributes significantly to the global history of foodways. The first is the circulation of foods and their associated practices. In France, in 1998, the publication of Plantes et paysages d’Afrique: une histoire à explorer specifically followed lines of research into the arrival of American plants on the African continent. Several of the inquiries gathered in this book associated history, botany, genetics and linguistics. These studies primarily concerned the plants that served as the basis of dietary regimes, such as grains, legumes and tubers. We now know more about the diffusion of maize in Africa and, thanks to archaeology, about the beginnings of the cultivation of Asian rice on the Swahili coast. The success of maize, manioc and Asian rice in African agricultural and food practices attests to a tendency towards innovation, in contrast to the idea that Africa is simply a victim of globalization and its most violent forms—such as slave trading and colonization. On this topic, the history of Africa before the 20th century provides an echo to the work which, following Sidney W. Mintz, showed how European food cultures were reshaped during the period of European expansion, notably by the emergence of new appetites for exotic goods made accessible by long-distance commerce.

47 See, for example, J. B ahloul , 1983, p. 23-24.

See, for example, J. B , 1983, p. 23-24. 48 A.J. G rieco , 1996.

A.J. G , 1996. 49 J. G oody , 1984 [1982]. 14The construction of distinction—relative to the Other, or between different social classes—is another broad field addressed by the history of foodways in Africa before the 20th century. Here the aim is to investigate the components of the food identities that are claimed, which are based on the sharing of a range of recipes, the use of certain foods, certain table manners, possible interdictions, and a discourse supporting the ensemble. This subject is not completely disconnected from the preceding one, since distinction by food is often based on the use of characteristic products which are distinct because of their rarity or uniqueness to a given group. It is now time to investigate the “taste for the exotic” of Africans themselves in order for the history of foodways to inform us on the degree of interaction between the populations brought into contact by conquest, slave trading and colonization. We must also inquire into the strategies of distinction between social classes, following the lead of Allen J. Grieco on the food hierarchies in Medieval Europe and during the Renaissance. The challenge on the African continent is a large one because this question is marked by the legacy of Jack Goody who, in his 1982 publication Cuisines, cuisine et classes, opposed African societies with egalitarian food practices to “Eurasian” societies with differentiated cuisines.

50 M.-L. D erat , 2002. 15Historians and archaeologists in Africa also contribute to shedding light on the power and authority relations associated with food and foodways. The institution of the banquet, that is, public meals organized by the powerful, provides researchers with the opportunity to analyse under a single heading a large part of the links that unite individuals within given social groups.

16Finally, beyond social differentiation, the ordinary diversity of dietary situations remains to be explored. We do not eat the same thing when travelling, at home, or at a public or political event. On this subject, much work remains to be done to finally do justice to the historical complexity of African food cultures.

17These new fields of research all seek to respond to a double question: What is the meaning of eating and drinking in “ancient” African societies; and how can we write the history of this activity, which is often confined to the private sphere or, in the case of public meals, to a limited circle? The articles included in this collection, organized in four parts, provide new perspectives on these questions.

18The studies in Part One concern more or less distant periods, but ones which—through a combination of historical, archaeological or linguistic approaches—all shed light on foodways issues that are poorly represented in written records. Through archaeology, the food of Neolithic societies in the Mauritanian Sahara (S. Amblard-Pison) is discussed and a review is conducted of research on the domestication of plants and animals in the Sahara and Sahel (C. Dupuy). The contribution of comparative linguistics to the history of culinary practices in Bantu Central Africa (B. Ricquier), as well as the problem of integrating zooarchaeological and historical data on the consumption of game and fish in Ethiopia (T. Guindeuil and J. Lesur), is also addressed.

19The studies in Part Two illustrate the diversity of dietary situations: street food in Western Medieval and modern Muslim contexts (B. Rosenberger), travel food in Sudano–Sahelian Africa at the beginning of the 19th century (M. Chastanet), and hospital cuisine in the colonial context in Mozambique (E. Rodrigues).

20In Part Three, historical and archaeological studies address the institutions of public meals—feasts and banquets—which crystallize social and political relationships. Here we analyse the contradictory accounts provided by Jesuit missionaries on the subject of a royal banquet in Angola in the 16th century (D. De Lima). The combined use of historical records and archaeological assemblages enables a discussion of the organization of feasts in Gambia in the context of the slave trade (L. Gijanto), and in the public and private spaces of the Dahomey Palace in the 18th century and 19th centuries (J.C. Monroe and A. Janzen).

21Finally, in Part Four, we explore one of the most dynamic fields in the history of foodways in Africa, that of the construction of the Atlantic space and its influences on food practices. Here the articles address the introduction of manioc to Dahomey (D. Juhé-Beaulaton), a comparison of the ritual consequences of the introduction of imported alcohols to the coastal and inland regions of contemporary Ghana (E. Akyeampong, S.A. Ntewusu), and the food practices of plantation slaves in the French Antilles (K.G. Kelly and D. Wallman).

51 T. S haw , P. S inclair , B. A ndah , A. O kpoko (dir.), 1993.

T. S , P. S , B. A , A. O (dir.), 1993. 52 C. G okee , A.L. L ogan , 2014. 22Archaeology plays a major role in this collection of papers. From the study of containers, which comprise the vast majority of artefacts studied, archaeologists have naturally been drawn to the study of the contents. As with the study of tools, which enabled ancient populations to produce their food, these analyses lead to the reconstitution of distinct phases in the manner by which populations feed themselves and how they organize to do so. This reconstruction of subsistence strategies thus has a history nearly as long as that of professional archaeology and the interest in the origins of agriculture. Nevertheless, the questions asked by archaeologists of these African food archives long remained essentially economic in nature. The identification and diffusion of grains and domestic animals and the definition of production systems and agricultural traditions still dominate the impressive but eclectic volume entitled The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns (1993). It was not until the final decade of the 20th century that the materiality of food and foodways became a true object of reflection on the associated social practices, or even the main object of archaeological investigation. In a certain way, historians and archaeologists of Africa thus followed convergent epistemological paths, even if they often addressed different chronological sequences. The emergence and development of an archaeology defined as “historical”, applied to modern and contemporary Africa, enables a dialogue between the two disciplines which better reflects the diversity of possible interpretations of the existing material.

23This journal issue thus shows that a new generation of historians of Africa, the heirs of a historiography that was pioneering in its interrogations and its capacity to work within a network extending beyond the historical field, can effectively contribute to a conversation whose multidisciplinary frontiers continue to expand.

24Acknowledgements:

25This collection of papers owes much to the work of evaluation undertaken by numerous colleagues, whom we wish to thank here: Carlos Almeida, Edward Alpers, Louis Chaix, Joanna Davidson, Chris DeCorse, Luís Frederico Dias Antunes, François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar, Dominique Juhé-Beaulaton, Joséphine Lesur, Catarina Madeira Santos, Mohamed Oubahli, Gérard Philippson, Frédéric Régent, Bernard Rosenberger, Robert Vernet, Thomas Vernet and Cheikhna Wagué.