African flavours at Womad

Casa África´s participation in the Womad of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria includes the African Culinary Corner, a social project for increasing awareness that trains a group of African women who reside in Gran Canaria with the mid-term objective of having them establish a social company that offers the public an African food catering service. The African Culinary Corner will open in the area set aside for International Cooking starting on Thursday, November 11th, at 6:00 pm, and it will allow interested audiences to taste Western African specialities such as thieboudienne (rice with fish), okrosup (chicken with okra sauce) or pistache de poulet (chicken with pistachio sauce). The hours of the African Culinary Corner will be: 6:00 pm to 2:00 am on Thursday, 12:00 pm to 3:00 am on Friday and Saturday, and 12:00 pm to 1:00 am on Sunday, November 14th.

The African Culinary Corner´s menu includes bolminas (bluefish meatballs), abamikon ya bilok (salted fish with vegetable sauce) and meat skewers. The dessert section includes ñame pudding, mákárá (banana pastries), sugar and orange blossom water pastries, and chakri.

This project for awareness and empowerment was established from the collaboration with the Federation of African Associations in the Canaries (FAAC) and as part of Africa Vive 2010. In its first phase, women completed training courses to obtain food handling licenses at Casa África, and they took their first steps in the world of professional catering thanks to the technical advice of the Canarian chef Felo Botello. The group that promotes the African Culinary Corner attempts to set into motion a sustainable economic initiative that also serves the purpose of increasing awareness and knowledge of Africa´s positive aspects, and educating about diversity.

In the specific case of Womad 2010 in the capital of Gran Canaria, residents will have the opportunity of tasting a sample of gastronomy from Sub-Saharan Africa, which is even less known to the Island´s population, on this occasion with the professional collaboration and execution of the Hérgora company.