Comrades IN Food and Books Across Cultures

Upon returning to the U.S, I ran into an African American Facebook friend at Whole Foods where we often ran into each other. He is a foodie and a local jazz musician in his 70s. For a long time, I thought that he was retired as I would often find him, his wife and a friend seated down for extended periods at the restaurant section of Whole Foods supper market. We would always speak briefly, mostly about food and Africa. Then I saw him and his band performing at Irregardless Cafe, the first vegetarian restaurant in Raleigh and realized that he was still active at his age.

The owner of Irregardless is a colleague and a big supporter of my work too. He has always contributed money whenever I have had small fundraisers for small projects or organizations. One the night I saw my friend's jazz group performing, I had been invited for a dinner by the restaurant owner and his wife. I enjoyed some great music and conversation that touched African American culture as well as the Jewish culture of the couple. It was a lovely night. Jews, African Americans ,then and now Africans, have an interesting history in the South and in the country. My college friend was Palestinian and I felt fortunate to have known friends from conflicting backgrounds. I could listen to various sides and then make my conclusions. There is a great divide between generalization of cultures and individuals personalities, politics not withstanding.

Food is part of that history as my friend, @thecookingene, has clearly proven. The now famous author Michael Twitty actually worked together several times at the North Carolina Museum of History not too far from Irregardless Cafe. The event where Michael and I were both speaking was the annual African American Cultural Festival.

That's the backdrop of my recent meeting with my friend at Whole Foods.

When he spotted me, he walked over with a slight limp and a smile on his bearded face and gave me a dab from a far as a salute to our friendship and an acknowledgment of the Corona era. The very next words out that came out of his mouth truly shocked me, he leaned slightly as though to keep our conversation a secret. " I saw your post on FB about COMRADE BOOK HOUSE, where is it?", he asked. I told him it was in Kenya. He seemed clearly disappointed. We spoked briefly and we parted ways.

As t quickly occured to me how central books and food have been in my sojourn in America and even before that. When in Memphis, TN, Kimet Bookstore was an African American joint located across campus. Bruce and Tony operated the bookstore throughout my years in college. Funny enough, when the bookstore sadly closed down, Tony opened a restaurant in the same neighborhood. I always stopped by the restaurant on Elvis Presley Avenue to say hello to my old friend.

Upon moving to the Triangle, two African American bookstores provided me with a welcoming intellectual sanctuary. Blacknificent Bookstore in Raleigh and The Know Bookstore in Durham were extremely important to my continued growth in activism. I used to host a Saturday workshop on Civic and Cultural Literacy as a community service. It was during that time that I got tired of theory and decided to do something practical. The same group that used to attend my lectures started a gardening program. We built a garden in the backyard of most of the members of the group.

The change in tactic came from my observation that majority of those who came to the lectures were interested in improving their health. It also bothered me that the bookstore had a restaurant which was not serving the most healthy food.

Blacknificent on the other hand was a strictly vegan space. I would later host a big dinner there after I had attended culinary school. It was actually one of the first spaces I could host a sizeable event when I was starting out as a food activist. The old ties of Literacy activism came in handy.

As I walked to my car, I couldn’t help mourn the eventual closing down of the Black Bookstores locally and nationally. They are such important cultural pillars. I now know better than underestimate the power of small things such as COMRADEBOOKHOUSE. The distance from the cash out register, inside Whole Foods where I was talking with my friend to where my car was parked could probably fit twenty bookstores the size of COMRADE BOOK HOUSE. Yet someone thousands of miles away was curious enough to stop and enquire about it. His inquiry brought back a flood of memories in a way he would have never expected or predicted.

Thanks to Dr. Nyambura for the interview and Njukì's COMRADEBOOKHOUSE for publishing it. Hopefully my wise elder and foodie will join me on my next visit to COMRADE Book House and play an African American tune of resistance in support of local Comradery in the struggle for a new dawn. Whatever the outcome, I was reminded that my going to the healthy food store where I met the elder and my meeting with Njukì Gìthethwa and Dr. Nyambura is a testament of the work of a mighty army of comrades from various cultures that have fought tooth and nail, to keep the spirit of Food Literacy and Sovereignity from going the way of three of my favorite bookstores. Eating well has never felt so precious.

Relationship Literacy

Food Literacy is not just about seeds growing, processing and cooking food a certain way but also about the deeper understanding of the importance of relationships. Here is a great example of such relationships that span across generations. Hìri is a community leader in my village in Murang’a county and he decided to gift me a most special gift: yams.

The gift however did not come from the modern mall, concealed in a colorful bag and wrapped in a translucent petticoat-like paper, but right from his small size farm. Even more interesting is that the gift was also hidden under the ground and it took the expertise of an elder with the disappearing art of digging yams in a way that does not damage the vitality of the vine. The gift had layers of mystery.

It was next to impossible to have known the size and shape of the yam tuber untill one dug it. Traditionally this was a mostly male food. It has amazing longevity in growing and in storage. Yams have always been planted in companion with a tree known as Mùkùngùgù. The tree offers a perfect environment for the yam to vine without competing for food. Both the tree and the vine are extremely resistant to drought.

It is clear that many of our elders have a lot to share if only the young have the interest to learn. The disappearance of such long-hold indigenous science that these elder possess is just as dangerous as the issues of climate change. As Joshua Abraham Hershel once said, " few are guilty but we are all responsible." We are all responsible for both climate change and equity in dealing with it its aftermath. Currently, the west has dominated the discourse, but we are changing that.

That kind of indigenous knowledge is what Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine is interested in promoting, preserving and advancing. Little will change unless we change the dynamics of our relationships both locally and globally.

But I will not be seating waiting for those relationships to change. I will do what I can. One of my immediate action plans this week is to roast this wonderful gift as my mother used to do for my father and then carry it on my journey back to the U.S. It will provide a most culturally appropriate lunch and dinner during the travel. Consuming yams during travels in the past was a common practice too. As one of the religious song here goes, I will fly and leave the early home and take to the sky where wonders will be happen like we have never seen before. Eating such an important food in the plane is my own way of communing with my ancestors both past and present.

Columbus and other explorers carried food in their travels, but in the end those travels ended in genocide. My goal is my travels will result in peace and joy.

A coup in tea

There are just a handful number of days I can remember with almost accurately recollection and August 2nd 1982 is amongst them. That infamous day is remembered in Kenya for the failed coup attempt by the Kenyan Airforce. Funny enough, I spent the larger part of the day with a very young chef named Mwangi. For reasons closely related to the time spent in the village in the last few days, those memories and the idea of a coups in history have dominated my mind.

Visiting with people from my village, with whom I have been largely disconnected with for over 3 decades, was a deeply conflicting. In some ways I felt home and yet in others, I could as well been a pink person visiting our village for the first time.

Many ideas come to my mind during that visit.

The most tangible idea was that I have been deeply involved in a coup attempt against ignorance, and injustice in pursuit of a reign of legitimate Sovereignity of humanity that is guided by truth, knowledge, justice and wisdom.

In celebration of that realization and to mark a very special relationship with some of my closest family members, I brew this tea from locals plants that my people typically don't use as tea. It is purely organic and mostly indigenous plants. It's just as good as any of the other teas I enjoy. I am adding it to my list of AFCOD( Afro Futuristic Conscious Drinks).

I can say that my personal coup against drinking only three primary drinks of Chinese tea, coffee and soda has been successfully. Many chemicals are used to grow tea and coffee for both local and international market. The long-term use of those chemicals have contributed to deplorable health conditions of farmers and the soil.

Even if my person success against dependence on those common drinks turns out to be a shortlived, the idea that the traditional unhealthy drinks grown with chemicals are the only viable option is no longer sovereign.

All of us have a huge stake in ensuring the success of the above coup for It's failure means the continued degradation of our lives, our environment and prospects as a species. I strongly believe that chefs and other researchers should take the lead in this struggle.

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.