The document discusses the challenges faced by the African diaspora in adapting traditional foods in Europe, emphasizing the importance of cultural food practices. It highlights experiences of modifying recipes, such as using potatoes instead of yam for fufu and creating alternative sauces that resemble traditional dishes. The adaptation process is portrayed as a mix of trial and error based on shared experiences within the community.

1. Why Diaspora Food
Matters
By
Maureen Duru
Founder / Director The Food Bridge vzw
Vice President FAAB vzw

2. “You can boil potatoes, rice but when you want to swallow like
Africans do, now where on earth will you get things to pound,
and that brings another level of problem.
So gradually you have to try and adjust, trial and failure, or
somebody will tell you I tried this and it worked and you start
to make that(…..) that is how we started using potatoes for
fufu. You know potatoes are like yam, so we use it but you
know that for Europeans they prepare it with milk, which is
their puree. So how will you be able to eat potatoes made with
milk with our soup. We had to learn other ways of making it”
(CH 2009)

3. “Yes, we will make a sauce with spinach to be
used as soup, then scrambled eggs and poured it
into the sauce (…) the sauce will then look like
egusi soup (…) we didn’t have egusi then and it
tasted nothing like egusi soup but it looked like
egusi soup, so we ate it and were satisfied” (EO
and MO, 2009).

4. Thank you.