Popularizing Traditional African Foods for Industrial Development: Constraints and Opportunities

This paper attempts to identify, in a fairly general and, to some extent, impressionistic way the constraints and opportunities that would attend upon any endeavour to popularize or repopularize traditional African foods as one way of furthering industrial development in Kenya. Since popularizing implies increasing demand, the underlying principle in this paper is that before any large-scale effort to popularize, supply must be assured.

It is argued here that while actual shortages may turn out to be less severe than officially projected for 1989, shortages are nevertheless likely to be substantial; necessitating a considerable amount of food importation unless a herculean counter-measures are in the meantime taken. This likely shortfall in the supply of most basic foodstuffs complicates in many ways any envisaged campaign to expand the existing demand for traditional foods in the country. It is also likely to undermine any move to seize the industrial opportunities such a campaign may offer.

A number of possible complications and opportunities are discussed. Also discussed are normative, structural and aesthetic constraints likely to undercut the efforts to make particular dishes, or traditional dishes in general, more "popular" than they now are.  


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HERE TOO: A Sampling of African Foods


NOTE: 

1.This paper was originally presented at The First Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS) Annual Symposium, held at Sirikwa Hotel, Eldoret, Kenya, which was held from September 17 to 22, 1984.

2. I have finally scanned and uploaded the paper to my blog on an "as is" basis, for whatever that is worth, in order to facilitate a wider readership without further delay. I have in that way avoided to the end, as I had done for some time already, the temptation to undertake minor or full-fledged editorial interventions in this pre-digital text, great as the temptation has on occasion been. It is my hope that the reader will find the essential content worth the while, despite the chaff.