There are utensils in food preparation and cooking that are unique to Africa. Here are some!

1. pot

In modern Africa, many families have switched to the use of cookware made of metal, ceramics, and other materials, especially when modern stoves are used for cooking, such as electric or gas fires. However, the traditional clay pot is still a favorite of many.

The traditional pot is made of clay and then fired in an oven. The processes involved in the production of a cooking pot and a water pot are different, as a water pot only needs to keep the water cold and not resist fire.

The traditional cooking pot is often used over an open fire, such as a wood fire, or in a hearth, or over a charcoal burner. The earthy smell of the pot gives a unique flavor to the food. Fresh beans or meat simmered in a pot taste quite different than when cooked in a metal pan.

The insulating qualities of the crock pot also slow down the cooking process, further enhancing the flavor of the food.

2. Mortar and Pestle

A mortar and pestle used to be standard equipment in many African homes, and often still is. A mortar and pestle was used when crushing grains such as millet or sorghum to separate the chaff from the grain.

In West Africa, cooked yams or cocoyam are also mashed into foo-foo. In Uganda, roasted peanuts are ground into an odii paste, while raw peanuts are ground into ebinyewa groundnut powder.

The African mortar and pestle is great for pounding hard, unlike its common counterpart in Western cooking, which is a small tool for gently rubbing spices together.

3. Mix stick

Most African kitchens have a mixing stick, or even a whole collection of them. They are made of wood and come in all sizes and many different shapes. The most common is the wooden mixing stick with a flat head, used for stirring food, but more often for mixing posho, ugali, or kuon: cornmeal or millet flour bread.

Every woman has a favorite mixing stick, which she says produces the best results!

4. pumpkin

In many communities, a gourd is a special and very practical utensil. A pumpkin is a climbing plant, which produces a long or round fruit. When this fruit ripens and dries, it becomes a very useful container. A ripe pumpkin is usually brown or gold in color. The woody interior is hollowed out and cleaned.

The Kalenjin of western Kenya use their gourds to ferment milk. And of course, every woman has her own favorite pumpkin.

When a gourd is cut lengthwise in two, one then has two gourds, which are very useful for serving drinks. The clean, woody smell of drinking water in a pumpkin is unique. In northern Uganda, visitors were often served homemade beer in gourds.

Various ethnic communities in Africa also use gourds as musical instruments, including the Acoli of northern Uganda and communities in West Africa, such as Mali.

6. Winning tray

A winnowing pan, or several, remains a prized utensil in many African homes. A winnowing tray is woven from reeds and is useful for sorting grain. After crushing or threshing, the maize, millet, sorghum, rice, simsim, and groundnuts are winnowed in a pan to separate the grain from the chaff.

Special reed trays are also used in some communities to serve food on festive occasions.

7. Grinding stone

In many communities, a grinding stone was the centerpiece of the kitchen. Some farms had a grinding hut or house, where several grinding stones of various sizes were housed, for grinding millet, sorghum or odii. Grinding stones have gradually been replaced by mills.

8. Knives

As in any other kitchen, knives are also important in the preparation of African food. However, traditional knives differed from modern ones. In Uganda, for example, a short double-edged knife was popular for peeling matoke (cooking bananas) and for shredding fish or skinning slaughtered animals.

9. Sieve

All kitchens in the world use seats. Sieves in Africa are now mostly made of metal or plastic. Traditionally, they were woven from soft reeds. They were used to sift flour or beer before serving.

10. Fragments

In many homes, shards of broken pottery and broken gourds were valuable implements. In the Acoli culture, for example, gourd fragments were prized for smoothing millet bread before serving. Apparently, nothing worked as well as a piece of broken pumpkin. And of course, each woman had her favorite bits of it!

Winnowing pans, mixing sticks, gourds, sieves, gourds, and cooking pots were, and often still are, included in the gifts a new bride receives to establish her home.

As new foods and new food preparation methods become established on the continent, new utensils will also replace old ones. Indeed, new labor-saving devices are welcome everywhere.

However, the allure of traditional African cookware cannot always be completely denied.