"They Keep Their Fires Burning" Conversations on food, manners and hospitality in Africa"


Another good book to know about: Georgina Beier edited this contribution to Germany's Beyreuth African Studies series (#72), published in 2005 (www.breitinger.org). I had a little trouble running it down, but it's a fascinating record of growing up and society in largely rural or small town late 20th and early 21st century sub-Saharan Africa by 14 notable Africans, many artists or scholars (all but 2 of them men, and heavily weighted towards Nigeria) sharing stories and insights about their families, communities, and food. Contributors are from Nigeria (Chinua Achebe, Segun Olusola, whose essay gives the book its title, Rowland Abiodun, Bridget Robinson Kuba, Wole Ogundele, Umar Danfulani, Andrew Haruna), Burkina Faso (Karim Traore), Cameroon, (Godfrey B. Tangwa), Tanzania (Matthew Ole Suya Brown, a Masai), Sudan (Ibrahim El-Salahi), Uganda (Taban lo Liyong), and South Africa (Rebecca and Es'kia Mphahlele). It is a welcome addition to culinary writing on sub-Saharan Africa.