African restaurants have a rich and diverse history, reflecting the continent's vast culinary traditions and the experiences of its diaspora. From the early establishments that catered to specific communities to the modern restaurants celebrating the "rainbow cuisine" of South Africa, these eateries offer a taste of Africa's vibrant culture.
The Rainbow Inn: A Pioneer in Northern Michigan
The first Afro-American resort hotel and restaurant in the Northern Michigan area opened in the summer season of 1950. Former Pennsylvania Railroad (formerly the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad) employee and Afro-American businessman William Thomas West was the proprietor. West, a retired railway porter-chef, and his wife Gail, both from Columbus, Ohio, decided that there would be enough business in the area to support such an endeavor. The 1950s and 1960s era of the northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan was a time period of expanding summer resort tourism.
They chose the name "Rainbow Inn" with the idea in mind that their establishment might attract people of all color. And sometimes it did. While mostly summer black tourists, vacationers and local Native Americans frequented the Clarion Avenue dining spot, many white hunters and fisherman would also stay there in the spring and fall months of the year. The Rainbow Inn was a particular favorite of the Afro-American summer chauffeurs, maids, cooks and servants.
The hotel structure at 1630 Clarion Avenue had been constructed in the late 1880s almost entirely of wood. It was originally built as the mansion for the Fredrick Bauerle family, a wealthy wooden ware factory owner in Petoskey. Over the years the three-story building had undergone many renovations which eventually had helped turn it into the Rainbow Inn after purchase by the Wests.
On March 9, 1965, the Rainbow Inn was totally destroyed by a kitchen stove fire that was too far gone to be put out by arriving firemen. Only a few months earlier the United States Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Specifically, Title II of the act outlawed Jim Crow racial discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce. That essentially was the beginning of the end of black-only resorts, hotels and or restaurants.
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The 1950s and 1960s was an era when racial discrimination against Afro-Americans was widely practiced in the state of Michigan and most of the Midwestern states. Public accommodations that could be used by black tourists and travelers were so scarce in the northern United States that New York City resident Victor Green, a postal carrier and travel agent, had published The Negro Motorist Green Book beginning in 1936.
It was an annual guidebook for African Americans to use to help keep themselves from running into difficulties and embarrassments when white owned businesses would not serve them. It was well known to blacks that whites in southern states practiced Jim Crow discrimination at their hotels, restaurants, gas stations and department stores. They also quickly learned that outside of the major cities of the north, the same Jim Crow discriminatory policies were practiced by white business owners.
Most, if not entirely all, of 1950s and 1960s summer resorters who came north every summer to the Petoskey area were caucasians. They came to visit their Lake Michigan cottages, vacation homes, and the many resort hotels. Accompanying many of these wealthy Midwesterners were maids on their days off. On that day Petoskey, known for its small downtown stores for shopping, would see a sea of blue descend on it for the day. Black maids would wear their blue uniforms to come to town to shop.
Often they were driven by their employer's chauffeurs in expensive limousines. Though allowed to shop in the white-owned businesses, it was not standard practice for the Afro-Americans to eat or drink in the downtown stores. That had to be done either at the Tip Top Tavern on Petoskey's Michigan Street, or Ruby's, outside of town near Harbor Springs. Both establishments catered to Native Americans of the area or the summer Afro-American help. In nearby Harbor Springs, Mrs.
Calabash African Kitchen: A Taste of Senegambia in Las Vegas
At Calabash African Kitchen, Fisher isn’t just deepening the culinary culture of Las Vegas with the city’s only Senegambian restaurant. When she opened Calabash African Kitchen on South Rainbow Boulevard a year ago, she had working capital (from a successful career in finance and tech). She knew her way around a budget and a balance sheet. “When I opened the restaurant, I had no restaurant experience. I had never even waited tables. I did not have recipes,” she said. At home, “we just close our eyes and cook.
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Jollof rice, a signature Senegambian dish, is often served family-style from a calabash. The Calabash menu draws on Senegambian street food with dibi afra (called suya in Nigeria), featuring chicken, lamb or beef marinated before grilling. Fisher’s marinade mingles black pepper, garlic, the West African pepper sauce and vinegar. “Each West African country has its own version,” Fisher said. “When you walk down every street in the evening, you can smell it.
For mafe-domoda, a lusty peanut stew, tomato paste, bell peppers, habaneros, onions and scallions are sautéed until almost scorched. “Back in Gambia and Senegal, we put it in almost everything,” Fisher said. “Some people like it liquidy,” as in Ghana, Fisher said. Egusi soup, of Nigerian origin, ranks among the most famous of West African dishes. Bitter leaf, a green leafy vegetable, also hits the pan, then everything is cooked down.
If the soup incorporates smoked fish, goat or beef, a corresponding fish, goat or cow’s foot stock can be substituted for the water. A significant portion of the restaurant’s customers are Black Americans, Fisher said. They’re frequently curious about the food. “Some of them get emotional,” she said. Fisher cooks in the Calabash kitchen about 80 percent of the time, she said.
“To a lot of people, Africa is hungry, and yes, there is hunger and wars and droughts and famine. But in Africa, we share a lot through food, too. When Americans think of African food, they typically default to Ethiopia, or perhaps Nigeria.
Celebrating Black-Owned Restaurants Today
February is Black History Month, a great time to support the many Black-owned restaurants and eateries. These restaurants represent some of the great culinary diversity and global flavors. Here are a few examples:
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- Beteseb: Serves authentic Ethiopian food with meat-based, vegetarian, and vegan options.
- Black Lion Café: Offers 100% fair trade Ethiopian coffee, tea, and pastries.
- Mansa Kunda: Honors the diversity and food of West Africa, with 90% of the menu available vegetarian upon request.
- Platinum Amala: Located in Silver Spring, serving up authentic West African cuisine.
- Rainbow African Restaurant: Brings out the flavors of Ghana and West Africa with a unique blend of spices and authentic ingredients.
- Roger Miller’s: Offers West African food, with the current owner being an immigrant from Togo who started working at the restaurant in the late 1980s.
- Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant: Encompasses the wide diversity found in Ethiopia, with a menu representing more than 80 different ethnic groups.
- All Set Restaurant & Bar: Puts a contemporary Southern-style BBQ twist on traditional New England coastal cuisine.
- Matchbox: Located throughout the DMV, serving wood-fired pizzas and American cuisine in a warm and lively atmosphere.
- Miss Toya’s Southern Cajun Kitchen: A Black, family, and woman-owned restaurant paying tribute to the traditional New Orleans gastronomic culture.
- Hardy’s BBQ: A food truck at the Montgomery Farm Women’s Cooperative Market, redefining barbeque with the art of smoked meats.
- Negril: A fast-casual, authentic Jamaican eatery serving up a taste of the island with bold foods and flavors.
- Little Island Kitchen: A Caribbean spot in Gaithersburg with dishes like oxtails, rice and peas, and mac and cheese.
South Africa's "Rainbow Cuisine"
Conversation with South Africans reveals that a lot of people think of butternut squash soup as the national soup of South Africa - it's served in restaurants, at home, and even on safari.
South African Butternut Soup Recipe
"We call it 'Boer pumpkin."' Cullingworth, Earl King, also of Table Bay, Johannes Mokae and Smallberger were among chefs in the city for a week of events celebrating South Africa's 10 years of democracy that included showing off what is sometimes dubbed South Africa's "rainbow cuisine."
The chefs prepared a five-course meal for lunch and again for dinner the same evening at the James Beard House in downtown Manhattan, and spoke with journalists about their home cuisine. In South Africa, they said, the melting pot is also a cooking pot, given the number of ethnic groups the country has - rather like the United States. "We took a little from all of them, but basically we have peasant food," Cullingworth explained. "It's very rustic."
The Influence of History on South African Cuisine
In fact, it was the search for food, and especially spices, that shaped the history of what is today's South Africa. While the Dutch East India Company was looking for spices and other treasure in the mid 1600s, its explorers found the tip of Africa a convenient place to rest and restock their ships. They planted a first farm, then brought slaves from Java, Sumatra and Malaysia to work in the fields because the local black population was not terribly interested in the Dutch (or their cuisine, preferring their own diet of fish and game, wild greens, root vegetables, berries and grains).
Malay slaves brought their spic flavorful cuisine, now among the most popular in South Africa. The French Huguenots, who arrived after the Dutch, introduced vineyards, today producing the country's well-regarded wines. Sugar farmers brought laborers from India to cut the cane. British and German immigrants added European embellishments to the mix.
Today, South Africa's 4 million people represent many races and mixed races. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu dubbed the country "the rainbow nation" after it established democracy in 1994.
Simple Tastes and Local Ingredients
All these influences and the wide availability of ingredients might overwhelm a chef, but Cullingworth, for one, keeps it simple. His credo is to present no more than three items on a plate, and his cooking philosophy is "to create simple and unpretentious cuisine." "We are starting to focus on what's in our own country," added Cullingworth, who was born in Zimbabwe, grew up in Johannesburg and now lives in Cape Town. "We have amazing wines. We have amazing grapes. We focus on what we have on our doorstep." And butternut squash literally grows at the doorstep. Every variety of squash grows in South Africa.
"If you gather up all that grow along the side of the road and toss the seeds away, it will grow everywhere," King said. Butternut squash soup can be plain or fancy. Some cooks add apples or tomatoes, some use nothing else at all. "It's like a vichyssoise," Cullingworth said. "You can make it as thick or as thin as you like, for the summer or winter."
The roasted banana and curry spices that Cullingworth used in the following version from the Beard House dinner help make it a velvety emulsion that is at once savor sweet. His definition of it: light in texture, but rich, smooth and creamy in taste.
Recipe: Curry Spiced Butternut and Sweet Banana Soup
This recipe, courtesy of Grant Cullingworth, executive chef at Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa, offers a taste of South Africa's "rainbow cuisine."
Ingredients:
- 1 butternut squash (about 11/2 pounds), cleaned, peeled and diced
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 ripe banana, unpeeled
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
- 1 celery stalk, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 teaspoon curry powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 1 cup chicken stock (use vegetable stock for a vegetarian soup), plus extra for adjusting thickness
- Fresh cilantro leaves
- Juice of - lime, to taste
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Garnish:
- Fresh cilantro
- Pumpkin seeds
- Pumpkin seed oil (or truffle oil or hazelnut oil, if desired)
- Bruschetta
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Sprinkle diced squash with brown sugar, hone 2 tablespoons butter and roast in a 350-degree oven until caramelized and soft to the touch, about 20 minutes roast the unpeeled banana in the oven at the same time.
- Melt the other 2 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan on medium heat, and sweat the onion, celer carrot for a few minutes until tender. Add the garlic, curry powder, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon, and cook slowly for a few more minutes.
- Remove the banana from its skin, slice and add it with the butternut to the pan, along with the coconut milk and chicken broth. Simmer until hot. Blend the soup in a blender until smooth.
- Adjust to consistency desired with more broth, if necessary. Add fresh cilantro, lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. Blend again until smooth and pass the soup through a chinois or household strainer.
- Serve hot (reheat if necessary). Pour soup into bowls and garnish with a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil, a few toasted pumpkin seeds and a sprig of fresh cilantro.
The soup pairs well with a chilled Gewurztraminer wine.
