Chad
Novel:
Told By Starlight in
Chad by Joseph Brahim Seid (ordered via Interlibrary Loan)
Summary: This book is a collection of Chadian folklore – the
kinds of stories that are told at night around a campfire (hence the title of
the book). There is a world origin story, a Chad foundation story, a “God
punishes the world by flooding it” story, a how Islam came to Chad story, and
several folktales that bear a remarkable resemblance to Western European
folktales. My favorite was “The Most Beautiful Girl on Earth, Hidden under an
Ass’ Skin,” in which an unmarried woman prays to become pregnant. She does, and
she gives birth to an ass’ foal. She raises the foal as her daughter. One day,
a little boy hears noise coming from inside their house, and he peeks through a
hole in the wall to see a beautiful little girl sitting next to an ass’ skin. He
brings her a little cake the next day, and he and the ass’ foal become best
friends. When it’s time for him to get married, the boy says he wants to marry
the ass, and everyone in the village and in his family objects. It is
eventually revealed that the ass is truly a beautiful woman, and the couple are
allowed to marry and live happily ever after.
Response: This book is so short, and the individual tales
are also short and very enjoyable to read. I highly recommend it. It was
interesting to read the tales and see correlations to stories that are very
familiar to me. There were several stories that resembled Old Testament stories
– Moses parting the Red Sea, the Hebrews carrying the Ark of the Covenant
through the desert trying to find a land in which to settle, the flood story,
and also a story that was a cross between Hansel and Gretel and the Joseph
story from Genesis, called “Gamar and Guimerie.”
The most surprising part was how difficult it was to get a copy of
this book. I found a copy available at AbeBooks and ordered it, but they refunded
my money when they could not find it in their inventory. I attempted to order
it directly from the publisher, who also refunded my money when they could not
find an available copy. None of the public libraries in my area, and none of
the university libraries had it, so I ended up ordering it through my
university’s ILL (Interlibrary Loan). The stamp on the copy I received says it
came from Texas State University – San Marcos. Way to go TSU – San Marcos!
Food:
Daraba with Karkanji
The finished product:
This was great. So much better than I thought. This is one
of the many dishes that I raised an eyebrow on and thought, “We’ll see…” I HATE
okra. Let me just say it again. I HATE okra. But, it’s one of those vegetables
that loves the heat, so we get a lot of it here in Texas, and they get a lot of
it in Africa. So, I bit the bullet, bought some okra, and cooked it. I am proud
to say I did not gag once while cooking it. And I ate it all. It was really
good in this recipe.
I bought the millet in the bulk food section of Sprouts. One
of the most fun parts of this project was figuring out how to get ingredients.
I would shop a week or two in advance, just in case I needed to order something
from Amazon or something like that. I would go to a store with my list, hoping
I would be able to find something, and I was AMAZED at how many ingredients I
thought would be really hard to find were, in fact, readily available. SO FUN!
Karkanji is Hibiscus tea, like I featured in the cocktail
for Cote d’Ivoire. It’s easy to make: just steep some dried hibiscus
flowers in hot water to make tea. It turns a beautiful bright red. Remove the
flowers and add sweetener, if you want to (I added some sugar this first time,
but chose not to add it when I made it later on). Garnish with a sprig of mint
and voila!
Cocktail:
Hibiscus Whisky Sour
I made this recipe up myself using 1 shot of whiskey (I used Famous Grouse because it's a good mixing whiskey), the juice of 1/2 of a small lime, 3/4 oz hibiscus tea, and 3/4 oz cane syrup. I shook it all in a shaker, then poured it over ice and garnished it with a mint leaf and a cube of pineapple. I was going to use a mango chunk since mangoes are more native to Chad, but when I made it, I realized that the frozen fruit chunks in my freezer that I thought were mango were, in fact, pineapple. Rather than going out and buying mango chunks, I worked with what I had.
Sante!
