"africa" news and stories

Of all the households in the US, 99.5% have refrigerators. About the same percentage have some way of heating food. We've seen some great gadgets for keeping things hot and cold here on Slashfood, but I want to show you an ancient technique for keeping food cool. It's called a zeer pot. The vessel itself may be third world, but it's playing a timely role in the continuing recovery of northern Darfur and other African nations. Science in Africa magazine states that a zeer can keep tomatoes edible for 20 days, as opposed to two, and meat two weeks, as opposed to a few hours.

A zeer pot is quite simple. It's basically two large earthen pots, one nested in the other. The space is filled with sand and water is added. A damp cloth covers the top. As the water evaporates, the inner pot containing the perishables is kept cool in the same manner that a mechanical refrigerator operates -- water evaporation draws heat from the inner vessel. Water is added twice a day.

Muhammed Bah Abba is credited with reviving (some say inventing) use of the zeer and has his own instructions on theory, application and making one. I am going to make one of these myself and see how long basic vegetables will keep at room temp. You can see from the picture how easy it would be to improvise a zeer with regular flower pots. I will then give it a taste test after one week.

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The networks must have tired of having reality show contestants battle for rewards of bagged Doritos and beer when stranded on deserted islands because they're taking the challenge of survival even further. The eight contestants on the weight loss show Man's First Diet (working title) will live with bushmen in the Kalahari desert and follow their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The men will hunt with the tribesmen while the women will "have to live according to the San Bushmen's strict social rules, looking on the ground for tubers and learning how to process and pound them to make them edible."

One of the goals of the show is to regain the knowledge of "the essential evolutionary link between food and effort." In other words, the contestants will hopefully realize that they should appreciate the food that they have at home, rather than inhaling packages of chips in front of the television. Whether the experiment, which will be monitored closely by experts evaluating their physical and mental health, will be a successful one remains to be seen, though it does seem likely that the participants will have difficulty transferring their new skills to life at home.

It is unknown how long the contestants will be out in Africa, but the show is planned to air over four 1-hour time slots on BBC3 in England.

 

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Growing up, many children are told to clean their plates during meals. This is partially because parents want their children to finish their vegetables and mostly because no one wants to waste food. The most popular reason to clean your plate? "Because there are children starving in Africa." Whether this sort of statement has an effect on children is difficult to say, but it did have an effect on a restaurant in London.

The Obalende Suya Express, a West-African barbecue restaurant, is enforcing a £2.50 fine for patrons whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs and leave food on their plates. They host an large, popular buffet every Sunday night and the restaurant owners noticed that people were taking food just because it was available, even if they had no intention of eating it. The owners said that they felt guilty dumping out all the wasted food at the end of the night. Now, large red signs warn the customers about the fine. The money collected from the fines goes to Oxfam, a poverty-relief charity.

The only downside? When customers learn to take only what they are willing to eat, the charity won't be getting as many contributions - not from this restaurant anyway. Other restaurants, including chains like TGI Fridays, donate food and goods to charity already, but perhaps this will encourage more business to do so when they can.

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Planning on doing some traveling this summer? Looking for a list of the dining hot spots that you should stop by for a memorable meal? Start with the go list from Food and Wine magazine, which picks out 376 restaurants chosen by "plugged in correspondents" from 50 cities around the world. They have the goods on restaurants like Michael Mina in San Francisco, Rockpool in Sydney, Ferran Adria's Fast Good in Madrid and Felix in Hong Kong, including a picks at both the high and lower ends of the price range.

Now, it's not possible that a list like this, even such a large one, would have all the great eats of any given city, but you aren't likely to have a bad meal by picking any of their choices. If you're traveling somewhere a little off the beaten path that isn't on the "go list," or are looking for something specific, it might be best to turn to another source of restaurant information. And the best resource, in my opinion, when traveling and looking for good eats is still Chowhound. Take some time to browse through their archives and look for recommendations, or pose a question on their message board if you're looking for something specific - like the best mexican food in Boise, ID.

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Ok, so far we've posted about a $950 cocktail, a $10,000 cake and even a $1.7 million cake. Well, the one-upmanship continues in Japan, where a jeweler has created a $5 million valentine made of chocolate and diamonds. The item, shaped like the African continent in tribute to its creator's connection to South Africa, is made of dark chocolate peppered with 2,000 diamonds.

I guess we can file this one under "just because they can."

Several other images of the diamond-encrusted choco-continent are available here.