The Bulawayo Cookery Book

First published in 1909, Zimbabwe's earliest cookery book will entrance you with over 230 recipes for African delicacies: aromatic green fig preserve; savoury bobotie (a curried meat-loaf that reflects southern Africa's Malay heritage); zesty lemon pudding, and warm, spicy gingerbread. Zimbabwean originals, every one. More than fifty delightful contemporary advertisements, for long-established Zimbabwean companies like Puzey and Payne and Maskew Miller, lend vintage Edwardian style to this enchanting work. A brilliant book for anyone interested in the development of southern African cookery, or in Zimbabwean colonial history.

After 350 years of settlement, British African cookery heritage draws on a creative mix of Tudor spices, Indian feasting, Malaysian gastronomy, Victorian gentlemen's club dinners, and Boer survival rations. Across the snow-capped mountains of Uganda to arid northern Nigeria; from the golden beaches of South Africa to the humid rain forests of Zambia - European communities in English-speaking Africa developed a distinctive and delicious cuisine. Engaging memories and exclusive contributions from distinguished Africans including Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Peter Hain MP, Lord Joffe, Prue Leith, Matthew Parris and Archbishop John Sentamu bring life to over 180 traditional recipes. Including a treasury of vintage illustrations and original advertisements from the region, this book provides the first comprehensive overview of the unique cookery tradition of British Africa.

One of West Africa's earliest recipe books, "The Ghana Cookery Book" was first published in Accra in 1933. Over 800 recipes make use of a wealth of local ingredients: ripe, tropical fruit, abundant fresh fish from the Atlantic Ocean, exotic spices, and a profusion of vegetables, grains and nuts from the fertile plantations of the Gold Coast. Providing a fascinating, unique snapshot of West African cuisine during the colonial period, "The Ghana Cookery Book" features a number of charming period advertisements, and is packed with vintage hints and tips on running a household in tropical Africa. If you have an interest in West Africa and the cultural histories of the region, this book makes for essential and enjoyable reading.

Recipes from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Asia and Europe

West Africa's earliest recipe book, "Cooking in West Africa" was originally published in 1920, and written for the benefit of young bachelor district officers in Nigeria during the British colonial period. Over 200 recipes use local ingredients such as sweet mangoes, beef from zebu oxen, green paw-paw and fresh ground-nuts, together with imported staples such as tinned sausages and condensed milk. Hints on stocking a cook's box and cooking for colleagues struck down with fever are interspersed with delightful vintage advertisements. This book is a piece of West African colonial history - to read, savour and enjoy.

The late 19th century saw practically the entire continent of Africa carved up and partitioned between a handful of European colonial powers. This is the story of the Stairs Expedition, related by the group's medical officer. First published in 1893, Moloney's fascinating narrative will transport readers to a world of cannibals, missionaries, and slave traders; a provocative military invasion and its bloody climax; and the mercenaries' nightmarish return march.

At last, more than a century after it was first published, a new edition of Mrs A. R. Barnes' classic 1890 cookery book. This historic and entertaining household guide is illustrated with charming and evocative black-and-white Victorian advertisements and offers over 500 recipes for southern African delicacies, including sticky melon and ginger preserve, Malay-inspired aromatic pickled fish, and spicy soetkoek biscuits. Mrs Barnes also provided her readers with useful instructions on how to make a traditional African polished cow-dung floor, how to treat snake bites, and the best method for discouraging mosquitos. A fascinating handbook, illustrating the adaptability and inventiveness of British settlers in the remote, unforgiving environment of Victorian Africa.

A frank, graphic, autobiographical account of white colonial rule in Africa, first published in an English translation nearly eighty years after it was written. "I wish that I could have seen this book when I was conducting my research in the early 1990s" - Professor Dr Jan-Bart Gewald, Leiden University "A vivid and detailed experience... one gets goose-bumps just reading it" - Dr Martha Akawa, University of Namibia In 1942, in a Cape Town boarding house, Eugen Mansfeld painstakingly typed out his life story, in German, on 179 pages of lined paper. He was entirely alone: one son killed during the Nazi invasion of Normandy; two other sons interned in South Africa; his wife trapped while holidaying in Germany at the outbreak of the Second World War. Mansfeld's autobiography spanned seventy years. Buying ostrich feathers and antelope pelts in the Eastern Cape in the 1890s; managing farms and trading in the remote canyons and deserts of German South-West Africa (now Namibia); fighting to preserve German colonial rule in a bloody, genocidal war against the Herero people in 1904-5; robbing Bushman graves to add to his grotesque collection of skulls; picking up gemstones from the desert sands during the diamond rush in the 1900s; and taking arms in a desert campaign against the British Empire during the First World War. Grave-robber; soldier; diamond-dealer; executioner; horse-trader... Mansfeld's personal history of the "scramble for Africa" is gritty, shocking and unashamed; a scarce autobiographical account of the brutality and inhumanity of the colonisation process published for the first time nearly eighty years after its creation.