Yemisi Aribisala

Any book that unzips with groundnut stew has my strong allegiance for the duration of the journey. The three young men ranging from cute to sinewy with glorious heads of hair boast of family backgrounds encompassing Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya, South Sudan and South London. I love the way they don’t presume you can fry dodo or that you know how to suck an orange “the proper way”.

The debut cookbook from a Senegalese-born visionary who by this time had taken his indigenous Fufu, Abala, Accara and Pepesoup and stunned the palates of diners in his restaurants in Brooklyn.

Bewitchment from start to finish. Ravishingly photographed with images of freshly caught fish, places of worship, homes, multicoloured fishing boats, the Casamance river with rice paddies, palm wine, palm oil, honey and fresh oysters. Interspersed with portraits of lamb shank mafe, fonio pilaf, sorrel-okra sauce, Nigerian kilishi, coconut mussels with crispy yuca fries, red palm brownies and poached mangoes…

A sensible, structured, extremely sure-handed book that is like a Nigerian aunty who has cooked for half a century. I trust the book’s good sense and placidity.

I have to admit to buying this book impulsively because it is the first food book with black authorship that I have seen since I came to the Western Cape. “…chickens from the shop don’t taste good…their muscles are soft even if it says “free range” on the packet. I go to Diepsloot to buy a real ‘Hard Body’ township chicken.” There is a sense of rightness with the world when a book confesses that. There’s millet uphoko, sorghum, anise and yogurt millet breakfast porridge, classic Dikgobe-black eyed beans cooked with sorghum. Overjoyed to find mucilaginous root vegetables – amadumbes cookedwith bacon, cream and rosemary; 5-hour oven cooked oxtail and tripe and trotters curry. Mabele (sorghum meal) with coconut cream and peanut butter. Amasi curd cheese.

A celebration of Nigerian Cooking and Food Culture was a book I found hiding behind other books in Quintessence bookshop in Lagos. I bought it as a gift for a friend and never delivered it. It is priceless. Not only full of recipes, it is full of rationales for eating and powerful food/life adages: words swimming effortlessly between cooking, living and eating.

Zoe's Ghana kitchen and her Supper clubs have taken London by storm. Her food is fantastic and here is the cookbook that beautifully documents her skills. There is a soundtrack to eat to on page 240.

I have no recollection of buying this book. It walked into my kitchen many years ago and by virtue of its doing so of its own accord and special powers, and because tucked in its pages is a strong aroma of my years lived in Calabar, of Ekpang Nkukwo,Ukang Ukom, fresh fish stew, Afia Efere…It will be carried henceforth from continent to continent in my bag of cookbooks.

The power of so many people’s stories told through the delicious medium of spices and virtuoso cooking is wonderful. I lived in the Western Cape for three years but couldn’t travel through. Ishay has given the gift of beautiful journeys through homes, hearts, cooking, mussel curry, bunny chow, fried fish masala, curried mealie rice, moong dhal, paneer chutney with cashews etc. etc.

My first ever Ghillie Basan book (originally published in 2014 as "Flavours of the Middle East"), given to me in Edinburgh with a container of chilli pepper and a tin of baked beans. An irresistible book with plenty of heat in it. Appeals 100% to my Nigerian cravings for extravagant heat on the tongue.