Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's African Fusion Cuisine recipes. This page provides links to all the African Fusion Cuisine and recipes presented on this site, with 30 recipes in total.

Fusion cuisine can be defined s a cuisine that combines elements of different culinary traditions that originate from different countries, regions, or cultures. Cuisines of this type are not categorised according to any one particular cuisine style and have played a part in many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s.

The term 'fusion cuisine' was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002, is defined as "a style of cookery which blends ingredients and methods of preparation from different countries, regions, or ethnic groups; food cooked in this style."

Fusion food is created by combining various cooking techniques from different cultures to produce a new type of cuisine. Although it is commonly invented by chefs, fusion cuisine can occur naturally. Cuisines which get fused can either come from a particular region (such as East Asian cuisine and European cuisine), sub-region (such as Southwestern American cuisine and New Mexican cuisine or a country (such as Chinese cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Korean cuisine, French cuisine, Italian cuisine). This page focusses on African Fusion foods which includes the use of African ingredients in Western or Asian recipe and the blend of African cooking techniques with other culinary cultures. The reverse is also true with the incorporation of European, American and Asian ingredients in African cookery and the adoption of Western and Asian cooking techniques in Africa.

Another form of fusion food can be created by utilising ingredients and flavours from one culture to create a unique twist on a dish from the different cultures. For example, a taco pizza is a type of pizza created using taco ingredients such as cheddar and pepper jack cheese, salsa, refried beans, and other common taco ingredients, fusing both Italian and Mexican cuisines. Or the Victorian additions of Indian spices to British stews. This type of fusion food is as old as cookery (older, indeed, than modern humans). Arising when two tribes met, sharing their foods and flavourings. Whenever one culture encountered another there was always a culinary exchange. I would argue that fusion cuisine is not a new thing, it's the nature of cookery itself. And the more I examine historical cookery books, and the more I read the more of it I observe.

Indeed, fusion cuisine has existed for millennia as a form of cross-cultural exchange, though the term was only defined in the late 1900s. Fusion cuisines is often associated with European colonialism, with mixtures of different cultures' cuisines assumed to have been adapted since the 16th century. But this history is much older. The Crusades brought new spices and sugarcane to Europe. The Romans adapted Greek cuisine and spread mediterranean plants throughout Europe. The development of Agriculture brought grains everywhere, making them staples. However, it is true that the quest for spices kicked-off the European age of exploration in the 16th Century and arguably introduced modern market economics.

Afro-Indian cuisine is a real thing, from the Indian influences on the cuisines of East Africa, Cape Malay cuisine in Cape Town, South Africa and the influence of South Indian indentured workers on the cuisines of Durban, South Africa. You also see fusion cuisines being developed as Indian and Chinese restaurants open up in large port cities like Dakar and Lagos and the cuisines are adapted to local tastes.

Outside Africa, immigrant populations bring their foods to Europe, America, the Middle East Asia. Restaurants are opened, introducing new foods (most notably Nigerian, Ethiopian and Somali) that are then adapted to local tastes generating a new fusion cuisine.

Being familiar with African cookery and being a keen forager I also create my own African fusion recipes by blending African cooking techniques with wild foraged ingredients.

The driving forces in Fusion Cuisine can be many and varied, from large international chain restaurants adapting their menus to better suit local customers, to chefs developing new recipes, to cross-cultural families developing their own dishes as a blend of both cultures.