Haute cuisine may seem a contradiction in terms on a continent where millions go hungry.
But Coco Fathi Reinharz, a half-Belgian, half-Burundian chef, is at the vanguard of a new African fine dining movement that is ditching stodgy, tasteless peasant food for sophisticated dishes with an exotic twist.
”All the stereotypes say African culture, art and food are primitive,” Reinharz told Reuters in an interview at his Johannesburg restaurant Sel et Poivre. ”I want to change that.”
”It’s not just about pap [maize] and stew — that’s the food of poverty. It’s like saying Belgians only eat potatoes.”
Reinharz and a growing cadre of young African chefs, many of whom train in Europe, are determined to showcase African flavours with finesse, using traditional ingredients like plantain and yam.
His new cookbook, To the Banqueting House — African Cuisine on an Epic Journey, co-authored with South African-British food writer Anna Trapido, features dishes like oxtail terrine with inkomazi dressing and brunoised beetroot from Lesotho, or yam and crayfish risotto, inspired by Gabon’s fish and rice dishes.
His rooibos tea-marinated quail from South Africa comes with julienned sweet potato, while stuffed guinea fowl is topped with a Ghanaian peanut sauce and plantain loaf.
Virgin continent
With fiery Indian curries, Japanese sushi and succulent Moroccan tagines ubiquitous in global capitals, and Ethiopian food making headway, the rest of sub-Saharan Africa remains a final culinary frontier for many foodies and Reinharz wants to nurture a growing interest in the continent.
”The world is getting smaller and there is a sense that people have discovered everything. The only virgin continent left is Africa.”
In South Africa, where African culture, art and food were stifled for years under white-minority apartheid rule, African food is making a comeback with African theme restaurants appearing in the smart suburbs of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
Reinharz’s family tree is steeped in food. His grandfather owned a restaurant and his mother was a chef at the top restaurant in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital.
He trained in Belgium, worked in Kinshasa and Abidjan — civil war forced him to leave both — then settled in Johannesburg, whose mix of European and African influences encapsulate his own background and approach to food.
Asked about his favourite cooking ingredient, Reinharz is torn: the truffle — the essence of luxurious European cuisine — or the humble African banana?
For all the talk of African cuisine, Reinharz admits that for many visitors, endless plates of stodgy starch porridge and perhaps a dodgy tummy sum up their culinary experience.
But he insists this is simply because true African cuisine is so often eclisped by poverty, and so often misunderstood.
”When you don’t know something you always say it is not good. There is an African proverb — a monkey that can’t reach the fruit will say that fruit is rotten.” – Reuters