Congolese Cuisine
The cuisine of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo varies widely, representing the food of indigenous people. Cassava, ''fufu'', rice, plantain and potatoes are generally the staple foods eaten with other side dishes. History Common Congolese dishes Less than two percent of the land is cultivated, and most of this is used for subsistence farming. Congo's farmland is the source of a wide variety of crops. These include maize, rice, cassava (manioc), sweet potatoes, yam, taro, plantain, tomatoes, pumpkin and varieties of peas and nuts. These foods are eaten throughout the country, but there are also regional dishes. The most important crops for export are coffee and palm oil. Wild plants,Mukenge, Tshilemalema (2002."Culture and customs of the Congo."Greenwood Press. fruits, mushrooms, honey and other foods such as bushmeat and fish are also gathered, hunted, and used in dishes. People often sell these crops at markets, or by the roadside. C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Food
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth. Different species of animals have different feeding behaviours that satisfy the needs of their unique metabolisms, often evolved to fill a specific ecological niche within specific geographical contexts. Omnivorous humans are highly adaptable and have adapted to obtain food in many different ecosystems. The majority of the food energy required is supplied by the industrial food industry, which produces food with intensive agriculture and distributes it through complex food processing and food distribution systems. This system of conventional agriculture relies heavily on fossil fuels, which means that the food and agricu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palm Oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced from oil crops in 2014. Palm oils are easier to stabilize and maintain quality of flavor and consistency in processed foods, so are frequently favored by food manufacturers. On average globally, humans consumed 7.7 kg (17 lb) of palm oil per person in 2015. Demand has also increased for other uses, such as cosmetics and biofuels, creating more demand on the supply encouraging the growth of palm oil plantations in tropical countries. The use of palm oil has attracted the concern of environmental groups due to deforestation in the tropics where palms are grown, and has been cited as a factor in social problems due to allegations of human rights violations among growers. An industry group formed in 2004 to create more sustainable and et ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, rabbits, pigs, and cattle. This eventually led to their use in meat production on an industrial scale in slaughterhouses. Meat is mainly composed of water, protein, and fat. It is edible raw but is normally eaten after it has been cooked and seasoned or processed in a variety of ways. Unprocessed meat will spoil or rot within hours or days as a result of infection with, and decomposition by, bacteria and fungi. Meat is important to the food industry, economies, and cultures around the world. There are nonetheless people who choose to not eat meat (vegetarians) or any animal products (vegans), for reasons such as taste preferences, ethics, environmental concerns, health concerns or religious dietary rules. Terminology Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vegetable
Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, and seeds. An alternative definition of the term is applied somewhat arbitrarily, often by culinary and cultural tradition. It may exclude foods derived from some plants that are fruits, flowers, nuts, and cereal grains, but include savoury fruits such as tomatoes and courgettes, flowers such as broccoli, and seeds such as pulses. Originally, vegetables were collected from the wild by hunter-gatherers and entered cultivation in several parts of the world, probably during the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, when a new agricultural way of life developed. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, but as time went on, trade brought exotic crops from elsewhere to add to domestic types. Nowadays, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Starch
Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets, and is contained in large amounts in staple foods such as wheat, potatoes, maize (corn), rice, and cassava (manioc). Pure starch is a white, tasteless and odorless powder that is insoluble in cold water or alcohol. It consists of two types of molecules: the linear and helical amylose and the branched amylopectin. Depending on the plant, starch generally contains 20 to 25% amylose and 75 to 80% amylopectin by weight. Glycogen, the energy reserve of animals, is a more highly branched version of amylopectin. In industry, starch is often converted into sugars, for example by malting. These sugars may be fermented to produce ethanol in the manufacture of beer, whisky and biofuel. In addition, sugars produced from processed starch are used ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Malewa Congo
Malewa is smoked bamboo shoot which is dried for preservation. The bamboo trees grow in the wild in eastern Uganda around Mt. Elgon in the districts of Bududa, Sironko and Mbale. Origin Malewa originated from Eastern Uganda in the Bugisu sub-region. It was originally eaten as food and later it started to be cooked as a sauce when mixed with ground simsim (sesame seed) or peanuts. Malewa is a major part of ceremonies in Bugisu e.g. Mbalu (circumcision), traditional weddings. Ingredients *Malewa *Water *Salt *Peanut paste Preparation Malewa is boiled in water to clean it and then the joints of the shoot are cut off leaving the middle parts which are cut into smaller pieces. Rock salt is added to the boiled malewa to make it more tender. Finally peanut paste and salt are added and the sauce is simmered to acquire taste. The malewa sauce is served with Either matooke, cassava, sweet potatoes, rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less com ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cossa Cossa
Cossa is a surname of Mozambican and Italian origin that may refer to: *Albino Cossa (born 1982), Mozambican goalkeeper * Alfonso Cossa (1833–1902), Italian chemist *Anabela Cossa (born 1986), Mozambican basketball player * Baldassare Cossa (c. 1370 – 1419), 14th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishop *Celeste Cossa, 20th-century Mozambican women politician * Dominic Cossa (born 1935), American operatic lyric baritone *Elisa Cossa (born 1980), Mozambican athlete * Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430 – c. 1477), Italian Renaissance painter *Gaetano Cossa (died 1657), 17th-century Italian Roman Catholic archbishop *Giovanni Cossa (1400–1476), lieutenant general of Provence * Gisela Cossa (born 1999), Mozambican swimmer * Helder Cossa (born 1969), Mozambican footballer *Luigi Cossa (1831–1896), Italian economist *Pietro Cossa (1830–1881), Italian dramatist * Roberto Cossa (born 1934), Argentinian playwright and theatre director *Sebastian Cossa Sebastian Cossa (born November 21, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fish (food)
Many species of fish are caught by humans and consumed as food in virtually all regions around the world. Fish has been an important dietary source of protein and other nutrients throughout human history. The English language does not have a special culinary name for food prepared from fish like with other animals (as with '' pig'' vs. ''pork''), or as in other languages (such as Spanish ''pez'' vs. '' pescado''). In culinary and fishery contexts, ''fish'' may include so-called shellfish such as molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms; more expansively, seafood covers both fish and other marine life used as food. Since 1961, the average annual increase in global apparent food fish consumption (3.2 percent) has outpaced population growth (1.6 percent) and exceeded consumption of meat from all terrestrial animals, combined (2.8 percent) and individually (bovine, ovine, porcine, etc.), except poultry (4.9 percent). In '' per capita'' terms, food fish consumption has grown from i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bushmeat
Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are hunted for human consumption, most often referring to the meat of game in Africa. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity for inhabitants of humid tropical forest regions in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Bushmeat is an important food resource for poor people, particularly in rural areas. The numbers of animals killed and traded as bushmeat in the 1990s in West and Central Africa were thought to be unsustainable. By 2005, commercial harvesting and trading of bushmeat was considered a threat to biodiversity. As of 2016, 301 terrestrial mammals were threatened with extinction due to hunting for bushmeat including primates, even-toed ungulates, bats, diprotodont marsupials, rodents and carnivores occurring in developing countries. Bushmeat provides increased opportunity for transmission of several zoonotic viruses from animal hosts to humans, such as Ebolavirus and HIV. Nomenclature The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, as well as during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous. Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee. Honey for human consumption is collected from wild ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edible Mushroom
Edible mushrooms are the fleshy and edible fruit bodies of several species of macrofungi (fungi which bear fruiting structures that are large enough to be seen with the naked eye). They can appear either below ground (hypogeous) or above ground (epigeous) where they may be picked by hand. Edibility may be defined by criteria that include absence of poisonous effects on humans and desirable taste and aroma. Edible mushrooms are consumed for their nutritional and culinary value. Mushrooms, especially dried shiitake, are sources of umami flavor. Edible mushrooms include many fungal species that are either harvested wild or cultivated. Easily cultivated and common wild mushrooms are often available in markets, and those that are more difficult to obtain (such as the prized truffle, matsutake, and morel) may be collected on a smaller scale by private gatherers. Some preparations may render certain poisonous mushrooms fit for consumption. Before assuming that any wild mushroom is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |