Following on from the success of Jacqui Gitau's recipe book 'A Taste of the African Pot' a DVD was produced to demonstrate how to cook some of the recipes.We developed a pilot project to provide an opportunity for African women to talk about the food they cook, demonstrate their skills and get involved in some of the filming.

Three African women, who are now living in the UK, spent the day together cooking. Filming and editing was lead by Derek James, with the assistance of two other African women who helped with the filming on the day. The event took place in the Jack Argent Room and the kitchen of the
Blackbird Leys Youth and Community Centre on Monday 31st July.

We started off with a discussion about the differences between foods from different parts of Africa and discussed the fact that many people think of Africa as being one country when in fact it is a continent made up of over 50 countries! We then went into the kitchen and Stella Courie
started by demonstrating how to make Okra soup and Millet meal, explaining as she went about health benefits of particular ingredients and how she has had to substitute some ingredients as they are not easily available in the UK.

Bernadette Birungi then lead a demonstration on how to cook Matoke, a green bananas dish and a peanut sauce. Lastly Jacqui demonstrated how to cook African Pie and Pilau rice. Jacqui also brought samples of tradional ginger beer and Maziwa Lala drinks for people to try. Tanya Prescott and Kate Dunsdon helped with the preparation of some of the ingredients behind the scenes and got involved with the discussion sessions.

After the cooking was finished we invited the demonstrator's children and people filming to come and join us for a feast and more discussions. Eventually (funding permitting) we would like to repeat this project but on a larger scale. We would plan much farther ahead to get more women involved in the planning stages and filming of the project. We would probably run practice workshops in the lead up to the filming as well.

The DVD is now completed and copies can be purchased or lent out to schools and community groups to give them an idea of the variety of foods cooked by African people. We are also hoping that by seeing the end product more women will want to get involved in the next phase.

For more details about the recipe book or to order a copy, please contact Jacqui Gitau on 07921462494. For more details on the DVD produced please contact Kate Dunsdon on 01865 467327.