Elderhood in The Hood

North Carolina has been extremely kind to me in many ways. I have many kind folks and a few friends that have become part of my life.  The truth of the matter is one of capitalism's byproducts is broken relationships. In others words, the god of capitalism is a jealous god and desires that all attention be reserved for its sake. That makes it both expensive and laborious to invest and sustain meaningful, soulful and nurturing relationships.  Yet there are many that one can find refuge from the wounds of modern day stress and pressure. Godi's garden and compound is one such places. I was very impressed by his garden full of bounty. I enjoyed fresh blueberries, Blackberries and a nice walk in the garden while Godi fixed my car in his garage.

Godi and I have shared a lot over the year. I have seeds in Kenya that started their journey in Congo, found temporarily refuge in North Carolina, then found their way to Kenya at the Food Literacy and Sustainability center.  We have built a tiny house together at Sparkroot and spoken at numerous events together.

It is for that reason that I celebrate a serious friend who adds gumption to my work. That memorable moment was captured by my son both on camera but more importantly in his mind.

The photo taken is reminiscent of images images that are imprinted in the recess of my mind of my father and some of his best friends reasoning together under the cool gaze of a shady tree. My dear brother and master craftsman Godi Godar  serenaded me with interesting stories that warmed my heart and jostled my brain. In the brotherhood and elderhood, I always find comfort. That comfort is healing in times of turbulence. 

It's a pleasure to have such friends on this fantastic voyage called life in Blackness. All while Godi was talking, I was quietly humming Bob Marley's song , Coming in from the Cold. As I left his house, the tune changed to Nakotuminaka, a popular Lingala song. That word means " I ask myself". If you know you know. If you don't and want to know, head to YouTube and know. Please remember the many Godis whose inate beauty is hidden or extinguished for profit as you ponder on the relics of the song

Celebrating Fatherhood and Knowledge

Here is recipe I prepared in rememberance of of men and women who have sustained the struggle for justice as solid parents. I understand that men play a different role than that of women in parenting but the idea of celebrating fathers separately is just one out of way ways. Simply because we have done things one way for so long doesn't preclude the consideration of other ideas..

Many of us are complacent in sustaining a system that favors us mostly out of luck and not due to hard work. The notion that we are where we are simply because our our hard work has been proven to be a fallacy. There is also the severe danger of cultural genocide that disadvantages the poor with illusions and asymmetry in information that would otherwise empower their rise to power. In the end, the wealth gap continues to increase. That gap means more dead broke parents who have to rely on debt. There is little to celebrate when broke and hungry. It's easy to ignore the problem when one doesn't have to worry about food. It took me a long time to make the connections between food, knowledge and power. Dr. Edward Said in his theory of Orientalism makes a formidable case that those in power have weaponized knowledge as a means of increasing their hegemony.

These notions lingered in my mind today as I spent the day teaching my children history and culture while we cooked together in the kitchen. The recipe we made is named Philo G after my first and best philosophy teacher, Dr. Ruben Green. Dr. Green taught me many things but most importantly the philosophical basis for being socially and racially responsible for the privilege of being educated and informed. A big salute to my father, Kabui Macharia, Dr. Green and the many other stand-up men that I have had the privilege of learning from. The salute is obviously extended to the women and children that made those men great fathers to many inside and outside their families. One can make a case that knowledge is a sort of father. Your knowledge guides your life while food plays the role of mother for it's nurturing power. Those two factors combine to heavily determines the type of culture we ultimately have as a society, country and even as a species. Be weary of any deadbeat institutions, whether political, governmental or religious that debases knowldge and food for it can only lead us to darkness and ultimately lead to our demise.

Freedom Foods

Kareem Arthur wrote the article below about African food. In the article, Kareem interviewed four chefs from Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Sudan who are pushing food from Sub-Saharan African. African food is gaining more prominence largely as a result of growing African Consciousness amongst Africa and it's Diaspora. I am excited about this resurgence as much as I am about the connections across connections brought about by a shared interest in food. Much respect to my comrades and colleagues, many of whom are not mentioned here, pushing for bringing about freedom to our food. African is going higher on more just on more than just the hog. Below is article.

https://newint.org/immersive/2021/03/26/freedom-food-fjf

HIGH ON THE HOG, Hoping for the dough

It is a great sigh of relief seeing people of African descent producing excellent content about food. Some of the faces are folks whose work I have been following for quite a while.

What is important to me is not that White people are recognizing Black people's food but that Black people are getting economic gain and consuming some of their own content. It's all about power full stop. People will always be nice to a certain extent, but power carries you a whole lot futher.

I almost froze up the first time I looked at the flyer for this Netflix show with mixed emotions. Then my mind traveled back to the lasting image from a slave narrative by Olaudah Equiano. According to Olaudah's account, people in his native region in what is modern day Nigeria owned slaves.

One ended up being a slave due to debt or war. What I found interesting is that the only thing that distinguished a free person from a slave was food. While an enslaved person did the same amount of work for the same duration as his master, he or she had to eat apart from everyone else. In other words, eating by oneself was the mark of slavery.

Upon his capture as and transportation to America, Equiano was sold on the slave market. He was then taken to the plantation of his enslaver. The following morning, he was tasked with fanning his bedridden boss. On his way to the room where the plantation owner layed, Equiano saw an enslaved woman in kitchen with a mouth piece tied around her mouth to keep her from eating the food she was cooking. I immediately went online to research how that mouthpiece looked like. I was horrified at how creative man can be even when the creativity is aimed at causing untold misery. But this was a form of turture that was mind-boggling.

It is quite amazing to me that food has now become an equal opportunity enslaver. Bad food knows no master or slave. Those with power suffer from eating too much of the bad food that has largely put them in power or maintain that power. The dispossessed are suffering from the consumption of processed food made by the powerful as they have been duped to value foreign and processed food and for lack of resources to secure healthy and justice food. Bad diet has become an equal opportunity killer.

One issue that is at the heart of every plate is justice or the luck there of. That is a fact we cannot ran away from. A threat to a plate justice anywhere is a threat to heatlth and sanity everywhere. That sounds like something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr would say.

High on the Hog is content that we will be consuming for a while. It a great time to ask what we intend to accomplish at the end of it. I love seeing familiar Black faces. But my goal is to move the needle of justice forward. I want to be high on legitimate power. High on the Hog can be a metaphor of exclusivity. It leaves out those that don't eat hogs or meat. But legitimate power is something that none has any dietary restrictions to be concerned about. While we all can eat any kind of food without any regard to race, the mouthpiece to power has both racial and class bias. I will be watching closely to see how that will be less so. Hopefully I won't be holding my breath too long. Otherwise, I might find that I can't breath.

The Republic of Muratina (Honey Wine)

I am not a big fan of alcohol and I don't typically dream about it. I certainly can't say the same thing about my ethnic honey mead named Mùratina.  I have many reasons for being very interested in the traditional brew. The most common interests being culinary, cultural and political. Maybe at the end of this writeup, I might add literally to that list.

I should clarify that the talk of Mùratina has been doing the round on social media in the form of a story about a Kenyan in the U.K who has packaged the traditional brew for sale in the U.K market.  I am hoping to catch up with him at some point to hear his inspiration and taste his craft. If it passes my critical taste bugs, I will invite him and his team to a five course dinner centered around the gastronomy of my region. I have the whole thing figured out in my head. Talk about vanity!

To be fair, there are all types of excitement about the initiative even outside social media.  I have a slightly different interest besides just the vanity above. That interest is etymological.   The one question I have been trying to answer for some time is how the name of the brew came about. I have my theory.

The Gìkuyù people, like most indigenous people, kept their history in their names. But then attrition and time can cast the meaning of certain names into oblivion. I hope to rescue the etymology of the Muratina as I believe there is an interesting story and message.  In addition there are a litany of utensils that go along with the brew. Among the most popular utensils includes ndua, ndahi, kinya and  the ubiquitous horn. When you add honey, sugarcane and three-legged stools to the mix, the only other thing needed is the most important ingredient: the company of friends.  The three legged stools from those days are so precious both in look and in feel that I first thought they were made with the precious tree nicknamed tree of life or otherwise known as Lignum Vitae which is one of the few trees that that produces wood that has oil in it.

The first part of the question I had to contend with was similar to the chicken and the egg one. Since the honey mead is made with the loafer-like fruit of the African Sausage tree, the actual name of the brew literally translates to alcohol made with the African Sausage tree. Here is where plot thickens; I am aware that some names derive from the use of that plant.  One such tree that I can remember on our farm was known as Mùthabuni ( literally meaning the soap tree). True enough, if you collected a bunch of leaves and rubbed them together with a little water,  you would produce some foam.

I have  therefore been curious to find out whether the same case is true about Muratina.  I first had to think about the role of the brew in the lives of my people. Muratina is the only drink that was highly regulated. It was mostly consumed by old men for Social purposes but it was also very significant in courtship, marriage and other important celebrations.  It was rather rare for a man to drink the brew by himself, the same can be said about slaughtering of animals too. In short, food and brew was a communal affair as often as possible.  It was used for repairing broken relationships and cementing old ones.  Young people were prohibited from consuming Muratina anywhere near the elders.

The second source of a possible clue is a proverb that uses a part of the body whose name seems to be tied into the name of the brew. The proverb which takes the form of an admonition and a bit of reaffirmation, states that “kìnya kìrì itina níkìo kìigaga ( which means that a guard with a nice base keeps its stability). The actual meaning is that a person with good behavior gains success and responsibility. I would hear this proverb quite often being used to encourage good behavior amongst children or the youth. What I found funny is the use of the word buttocks in the proverb as the preferred symbol of the base of the guard. So the literal translation of the proverb would be that a guard with buttocks is able to seat upright. 

Some context is necessary here to appreciate the meaning of the proverb. Before the advent of modern kitchen utensils, guards and clay pots were the preferred containers for all household uses. Certain guards were very narrow at the base and had to be leaned next to a wall. One such guard was called Gítete and was used for fermenting milk. Gítete actually resembles the fruit of the African Sausage tree. But a much bigger guard whose base resembles a pumpkin could easily seat comfortably without any support. Now one can see the symbolism. A person with good behavior can live comfortably and one who makes bad choices is surely likely to suffer. The message was so important that the inconvenience of the use of uncomfortable words could not deter its use.

I therefore came to the conclusion that the same logic can be extrapolated further in the case of the close relationships between men or elders who used to drink Mùratina. If the buttocks of the guard allowed it to stay upright, why not celebrate such uprightness in the comradery amongst the elders?

I suspect that the name Mùratina came from mùrùna wì itina.  Mùruna means friend and itina means buttocks. The translation would then mean a friend that is solid to the test, upright and secure. The friendships in this case were just fraternal.

Here is a political analysis of the viral story about Mùratina. Economically, the brew does not have buttocks to compete in the international market. It would be an extremely difficult task for a local brew to make it in a highly competitive international alcohol market without the help of the Kenyan government and the support of the local market.

Alcoholic drinks are not like diamonds, gold or oil that can rely totally on being exported to outside markets. Alcohol is cheap to make and the margins are rather small. It is also a specialty item. If Kenyans can not first develop it for the local market successfully, it would be rather hard to make any significant inroad on the international league. 

Tea and coffee in the case of Kenya and cacao in the case of West Africa are examples of popular nonalcoholic drinks that are quite popular internationally but have not brought any fortunes to write home or here about. That the farmers and by extension the country have reaped little benefits compared to the importing countries is evidence enough to warrant all the doubt necessary.

I checked the price of coffee at the Whole Foods store close in my area and Kenyan coffee was the most expensive brand on the shelf. It was retailing for $12 dollars per pound. The last time I visited Kenya and talked to farmers in my village, they had paid a paltry sum of $1 dollars for 2.2 lbs for their chemical-intensive and back-breaking berries. That translates to less than 5% of the retail prices when compared to farm gates prices. Global power politics rarely has an unattractive head again to ensure that the gain is both one sided and that side just happens to be the side of the wealthy.

Back to the Mùratina story. If at all the brew is going to have good buttocks in the global market, it will need it's own “Mùruna ùrì itina" or a special friend.  That special friend will need to be a big person with enough influence and weight to throw around.   Only governments can fit that category of a big friend. Otherwise we can expect two things: either bottles of Mùratina that can't seat upright or another struggling company.

 The other option that is possible, but unlikely, is the Mùratina Republic that is similar to Banana republics in South America.  That term came about as a result of American obsession with the prices of bananas.  The obsession became so great that whenever workers would strike in order to get a small increase in pay, America would engineer a regime change and replace the presidency with one who would keep the prices of bananas wherever America wanted it to be. In 1954, President Juan Jacobo Urbenze was overthrown from office largely for his threat to the banana industry as well as his threat to Nestlé's powdered baby formula.

Those drunk with power and injustice are bent on making sure that the shelf life of Muratina is very short indeed. It is for that reason I love Mùratina in a mighty way and dream of it just slightly more. I guess my love of the brew, food and justice has buttocks too.

TODAY'S RADIO APPEARANCE ON INOORO FM

I will be speaking with Nderitu Waihura on Inooro FM from around 6.15 - 7pm Kenyan time and 11.15  am to Noon EST. I will speaking about the Post-covid global system relative the economy, food and politics.

Below is the link:

https://radio.or.ke/inooro/

What's the Catch in Food?

We all know about scams and ponzi schemes. So much so that it comes as no surprise to hear the question posed about the catch in regards to a sales pitch. In other words, the person posing the question is expressing two very important points. The first is that the seller and the buyer have different interests and the the seller has both the incentive and means to manipulate the power in aaction that might not be necessarily in the interest of the buyer at worst or at a minimum influence the decision making process.

That means that the buyer has to be ever vigilant. That however happens lesser often than is necessary. Whenever someone says that the food system is broken, they are actually giving a critical analysis of the consumer's ability to act in his best interests.

One simple way to rectify that is to recognize that their is a potential catch in every food decision you make. Asking the question about where the catch is should be both standard and organic.

Yet, simply asking a question without the ability and correct information is unlikely to result in any positive change. That means that gathering correct information is absolutely necessary. Correct information is the fertile ground upon which a just food system will have to be built.

Having said that, I can argue that we can't have good leadership without good eatership. The first vote is that of food. Failure to master that results in an unjust food system as well as political system.

Where is your catch?