Marinated Nile perch, sorghum dumplings and fuul: putting Sudanese cuisine on the map

Preparing vegetables at his aunt’s house in a quiet Khartoum neighbourhood, Omer Eltigani has bigger ambitions than learning family recipes.

The young British-Sudanese pharmacist, 31, wants to bring Sudanese cuisine to the rest of the world with the first non-Arabic cookbook aimed at foreign diners.

While Sudan’s cooking has not tickled foodies’ palates as much as its Ethiopian neighbours, Eltigani said he hopes to change this – highlighting Sudan’s culinary influences from Africa and the Arab world.

The project, dubbed Sudanese Kitchen, was originally born from homesickness. “I was living at uni and I really missed my Mum’s food, so I would go home and ask her for recipes,” he said.

He learned to cook from scratch, starting with the dish he missed the most: lamb meatballs, popular across the region, served in a thick Sudanese tomato and garlic sauce.

He started sharing his recipes with cousins, eventually setting up awebsite, and found that people from all over the world were interested in this relatively unknown cuisine.

In October 2015 he decided to dedicate himself to writing the book. So he quit his job and travelled to Khartoumfor a 10-day research visit, in January.

He collected family recipes, cooked with his two aunts, and visited restaurants, markets and museums.

“It’s about placing the food in its context,” Eltigani explained. The book will include around 40 recipes and is aimed at foreigners but also Sudanese chefs looking to learn more about their country’s cooking.

Politics at the table

But his insistence on tying the cuisine to Sudan’s turbulent history has made difficulties in finding publishers in Britain, who would prefer just a book of plain recipes, he said, but “you can’t really not talk about politics and talk about Sudan”.

Under Arab and African influences, Sudan was colonised in the 19th century by the Ottomans, and then by Britain and Egypt until 1956.

Its post-independence history has been blighted by civil war, military dictatorship, unrest and poverty and each period has affected the way Sudanese people eat, Eltigani said. A fact he wants to be central to the book. “The dishes made are made for sharing,” he said, “when you’re eating together you feel like you’re part of a community.”