I was very excited to see we were going to be blogging about cuisine because I believe food plays a significant role in a societies culture, and who doesn't love food. The Democratic Republic of the Congo's cuisine varies widely throughout the region. The main food is Cassava, which is one of the many forms of food of the indigenous people, where Cassava is the most well known food that is usually served with a variety of side dishes. The Congo, despite its large size, only has about 2% of its land cultivated and readily available to be farmed on, where the Congo's farmland is the main source of food and provides a wide variety of crops. Some of the crops include maize, rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, yam, tomatoes, pumpkin, as well as various peas and nuts. These are the staple foods of the Congo, although there are other foods that vary depending on the region.
Cassava is the most wide known dish of the Congo is a dish that involves Cassava leaves and is served is the form of stew. The starchy paste comes from the Cassava plant and flower, and is combined with fur (a form of beef) and the fufu combination is rolled into golf sized balls and then dipped into a spicy stew. This meal is often served with a fermented bread, kwanga, made from cassava.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congolese_cuisine
http://www.congocookbook.com/
http://www.everyculture.com/Bo-Co/Republic-of-Congo.html#b
