Moringa, fonio, baobab… the (re)discovery of African superfoods
Publication year
Resource type
UNCCD Library
Material Type
news article
Paris may be a gastronomic capital, but chefs, nutritionists and scientists from Africa's diaspora are rediscovering and promoting the virtues of natural foods from the continent. They are finding a large range of products that are easier to digest, with low glycemic index and numerous other health benefits. Move over, croissant...
For Fatoumata Diarra, a specialist in Afro vegan pastry, the adventure began almost by accident. “A few years ago, during my maternity leave, I wanted to make a cake… but I didn’t have any wheat flour. I thought of cassava flour that my mother, who is of Senegalese origin, had given me. And the test I did in my kitchen was so successful that I started to experiment with more and more African flours to create new pastries.”
After gaining a qualification in pastry making and completing a “healthy pastry” course at the Parisian school Ferrandi, Diarra has enriched her knowledge and know-how of special ingredients from the continent. She celebrates them in the kitchen, for various restaurants, but also in workshops and “Afro tea times” in Paris.
Gluten-free and slow sugars
“I work with fonio, which has a particularly low glycemic index, to add crunch to pastries, but also plantain, manioc and sweet potato flour. These products are gluten-free and much easier to digest: rich in starch, they contain slow sugars instead of fast sugars, and these are more easily absorbed by the body.”
Most of these products were already familiar to her… But they were not considered to be of much value and never used to make Western pastries. Bouye juice, or ‘monkey wine’, for example, well known in Senegal, and made from monkey bread, the fruit of the baobab tree, is an already popular drink. It is acidic, and a little vanilla sugar or orange blossom can be added…
Protein and vitamins
But beyond the taste, consumers are generally unaware of its health benefits: monkey bread is a source of fibre and antioxidants (35 times more than in grapes, for example), and is naturally very rich in calcium, vitamin C (six times more than an orange) and potassium.
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For Fatoumata Diarra, a specialist in Afro vegan pastry, the adventure began almost by accident. “A few years ago, during my maternity leave, I wanted to make a cake… but I didn’t have any wheat flour. I thought of cassava flour that my mother, who is of Senegalese origin, had given me. And the test I did in my kitchen was so successful that I started to experiment with more and more African flours to create new pastries.”
After gaining a qualification in pastry making and completing a “healthy pastry” course at the Parisian school Ferrandi, Diarra has enriched her knowledge and know-how of special ingredients from the continent. She celebrates them in the kitchen, for various restaurants, but also in workshops and “Afro tea times” in Paris.
Gluten-free and slow sugars
“I work with fonio, which has a particularly low glycemic index, to add crunch to pastries, but also plantain, manioc and sweet potato flour. These products are gluten-free and much easier to digest: rich in starch, they contain slow sugars instead of fast sugars, and these are more easily absorbed by the body.”
Most of these products were already familiar to her… But they were not considered to be of much value and never used to make Western pastries. Bouye juice, or ‘monkey wine’, for example, well known in Senegal, and made from monkey bread, the fruit of the baobab tree, is an already popular drink. It is acidic, and a little vanilla sugar or orange blossom can be added…
Protein and vitamins
But beyond the taste, consumers are generally unaware of its health benefits: monkey bread is a source of fibre and antioxidants (35 times more than in grapes, for example), and is naturally very rich in calcium, vitamin C (six times more than an orange) and potassium.
READ FURTHER FROM THE SOURCE
Keywords
consumption
Africa
food security
health and diet