Food Culture in Cameroon
It happened during dinner with my then partner, his father and his brother. We were seated in a busy family restaurant munching on fries and sipping beers while waiting for our meals to arrive. In the meantime, we continued a discussion about Cameroonian culture which we had begun at home. I was telling them about the food people in Cameroon eat, naturally starting with achu since it is the signature traditional meal of people from my village, Bafanji. I described the process of boiling cocoyams (taro) and using a wooden mortar and pestle to pound the tubers into the achu fufu. I explained about how important it is to do the pounding while the tubers are still very hot to get the desired glutinous consistency in the achu fufu . I then started describing the process of making the accompanying yellow sauce. It involves a stone we call kanwa. Kanwa is also known as potash and it is a soft potassium based rock. It is diluted in water and vigorously mixed heated palm oil to form a yellow mixture to which spices are added. As I spoke, their eyes got wide in amazement.
“Wait… you mean you guys use a stone to make the sauce?”
There was unadulterated skepticism in his brother’s voice. I nodded yes and the conversation shifted to the stone. What I described was, after all, quite different from the stone soup of the European folktale they might be familiar with. Why this stone? Well, I explained, the solution made from diluting kanwa in water is used to emulsify the fats in the palm oil, in the same way soap emulsifies oils on skin and other materials in order to clean them. It didn’t get better when I explained that aside from kanwa, women in the region used ash from burnt plantain skins to achieve the same purpose, and ash from palm fruit stalk is used by the Igbo of Nigeria as a replacement for kanwa (which they call akanwu).
Is this safe?
Their questions continued, full of well justified curiosity about the practice. I tried to be patient as I answered them. I don’t know anyone who has been hurt from eating achu soup, but kanwa consumption has been associated with kidney problems.
Where do the stones come from?
We buy them in the market. I imagine they are mined in the same way other stones are, I don’t know exactly where from though.
What does it taste like?
This one was hard. Nothing I can think of in the cuisines the average American is exposed to even approximates the sweet-savory-soapy-chalky-spicy perfection of freshly made achu soup. Finally, shaking his head in wonder, my partner’s father asked the one question I couldn’t think of a way to answer.
How did people even figure out they could use that stone or ash to make this soup?
I’ve thought about this question ever since. The more I thought about it, the more my questions expanded to include not just food but other things that Cameroonians around the country consume such as traditional drinks whether harvested (like palm wine), distilled (like afofo) or brewed (like corn and millet beer), as well as the herbal formulae of traditional medicine. We did, after all, have this conversation about achu soup while drinking beer which is one of the oldest consumed drinks in the world. How did people — specifically women, who are still the custodians of food culture in Cameroon and across the African continent — figure out how to make Ekwang, Eru, Kpem, Ndole, Ouinga, Ebandjea or any of the meals in the cuisine of different ethnic groups in Cameroon? Also, if “man eats within a culture” as stated by French social scientist Claude Fischler, and food is a medium through which people can express who and what they are to others, then what do these meals, many of which predate the formation of the state known as Cameroon, reveal about the culture of the people from which they come?
The bulk of literature about food in the African context rightfully focuses on the issue of food security but this comes at the expense of recognizing the uniqueness and creativity with which food expresses culture in African countries.[i] Food, as much as language, oral traditions, dance, attire, and other more obvious indicators, is an important expression of cultural identity. How food is grown, harvested, stored, prepared, and served, contains codes which signal hierarchical positions within a culture, inclusion and exclusion from the culture, the boundaries which delineate the culture and what transactions are possible across those boundaries. [i] In Cameroon, the adage “you are what you eat” takes on a deeper meaning. It refers not only to the state of health a person or community finds themselves in as a result of what they eat, but also to that person or community’s sense of who they are based on what they do or do not eat, as well as on how they prepare and serve food. With over two hundred ethnic groups spread across a national territory which extends from a Sudano-Sahelian climate in the northern part of the country to Equatorial forests in the southern part, and reaches the Atlantic coast in the west, Cameroon has a dazzlingly rich food culture which reflects the geographical diversity of the country. As a consequence, the link between food, geography and identity is deep. To those in the know, food sources, names and eating habits easily identify the ethnic group from which they come and give insight into the cultural practices of the group.[ii] Culture, ethnicity, and location also dictate what foods go with what and in many cases, meals are part of structured social events.[iii],[iv]
For example, fufu corn (made with corn) and water fufu (made with cassava), like achu fufu, are starchy pastes eaten with the fingers. But a person eating fufu corn with eru (a vegetable sauce made with Gnetum africanum, spices, waterleaf i.e. Talinum fruticosum and palm oil) might raise a few eyebrows. Achu easily evokes the mostly conservative, farm loving people and culture in the Northwest region of the country, while kilishi, a spicy sundried beef jerky, evokes the cattle raising culture of the Hausa and other ethnic groups from the Northern regions of the country. In addition, how and when these foods are served and who can or cannot consume certain foods, gives further insight on the people doing the serving and how closely they adhere to the traditions of their ethnic group or village. For example, it is not a “Bornhouse”, that is, the traditional celebration to mark the birth of a child among people from the Northwest region, if “Bornhouse Plantain” is not served.[v] Bornhouse Plantain is a stew of plantains cooked in palm oil, spices, bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina), and chunks of beef. Similarly, among the Guidar of the Northern region, food served at naming ceremonies includes cooked beef, chicken, mutton and millet beer known to the Guidar as bili-bili.[vi] As part of burial rituals, the kinsmen of a deceased Guidar man purchase and share among themselves a kind of sun dried or smoked beef which is cooked without salt. Similarly, one can hardly conceive of a proper post burial funeral meal among the Beti of the Center region without the Kabad Edzeb Mbim — a meal of cooked goat meat which is also shared among the brothers of the deceased to strengthen ties within the family. [vii] Furthermore, one could easily know if a person from one of the grassfield tribes of the Northwest or Western region adheres to cultural protocols if, in the course of serving a chicken based meal, they reserved the gizzard and the heart of chicken for the male head of family or any male title holders present.[viii],[ix] In another example, Khati-khati, a delicious preparation of fire-roasted chicken cooked in palm oil and spices, was initially reserved for initiated male members of certain secret societies among the Nso of the Northwest region, due perhaps to links to sacrificial rituals.[v] These days, among the Nso and other Cameroonians, Khati-khati is eaten by all who can afford it.
With changes in lifestyle characterized mainly by rural-urban migration, the average Cameroonian has a diverse diet with the ability to prepare foods from different regions and ethnic groups in the country.[x] This culinary bounty is counterbalanced by the increasingly felt effects of climate change and the impact of state laws related to land use which has implications for food production and accessibility in many parts of Cameroon. For example, the seven regions in the forest and coastal zones have a rich variety of options while food insecurity and deficiency diseases are increasingly prevalent in the three regions found in the arid Sudano-Sahelian zones in the Northern part of the country.[xi],[xii] At the same time, the Baka, who are a nomadic hunter-gathering tribe in the Eastern region are undergoing intense changes to their diet due to government restrictions on where they can hunt and gather their traditional foods. [xi]
Food is a fundamental aspect of collective identity and what people eat or perceive as their food culture contributes to their sense of what groups they belong to. Cameroon’s geographical location creates a wide variety of possibilities for food derived from plants and animals. This is reflected in the nutritionally rich and diverse traditional cuisines from different tribes in the country which incorporate the roots, stems, barks, leaves, fruit and seeds of a wide variety of plants and fungi as well as an extensive repertoire of domesticated and wild animals and insects. With trade and travel, the foods from various traditional cuisines are now consumed all over the country and present inherent but under leveraged benefits especially with the cultural attachment and positive disposition that people have towards them.[xiii]
References
[i] McCann, James C. Stirring the pot: A history of African cuisine. Ohio University Press, 2009.
[ii] Anchimbe, Eric A. “Naming food in English in multilingual Cameroon.” Talking about Food: The social and the global in eating communities 47 (2020): 257.
[iii] Douglas, Mary. Implicit meanings: Selected essays in anthropology. Psychology Press, 1999.
[iv] Koppert, Georgius JA, et al. “Food consumption in three forest populations of the southern coastal area of Cameroon: Yassa-Mvae-Bakola.” Man and the biosphere series 13 (1993): 295–295.
[v] Nyamnjoh, Henrietta, and Michael Rowlands. “Do you eat Achu here? Nurturing as a way of life in a Cameroon diaspora.” Critical African Studies 5.3 (2013): 140–152.
[vi] Fomine, Forka Leypey Mathew. “Food as a linking device among the Guidar of North Cameroon La nourriture comme lien entre Guidar du nord-Cameroun.” Anthropology of Food (2009).
[vii] Mebenga Tamba, Luc. “Seeking peace through Bëti funeral rites in South Cameroon.” African Study Monographs 37.1 (2016): 29–44.
[viii] Dalis, Atoukam Tchefenjem Liliane. “Historical and ethnological analysis of consumption of foodstuff in Adamawa and Western Cameroon.” Science Journal of Sociology and Anthropology 2013 (2013).
[ix] Alubafi, Mathias Fubah, and Molemo Ramphalile. “The shifting iconography of drinking horns in the Western Grassfields, Cameroon.” Cogent Social Sciences 3.1 (2017): 1375598.
[x] Koppert, Georgius JA, et al. “Food consumption in three forest populations of the southern coastal area of Cameroon: Yassa-Mvae-Bakola.” Man and the biosphere series 13 (1993): 295–295.
[xi] Kouebou, C. P., et al. “A review of composition studies of Cameroon traditional dishes: Macronutrients and minerals.” Food chemistry 140.3 (2013): 483–494.
[xii] Gallois, Sandrine, et al. “From Bu sh Mangoes to Bouillon Cubes: Wild Plants and Diet among the Baka, Forager-Horticulturalists from Southeast Cameroon.” Economic Botany (2020): 1–13.
[xiii] Fungo, Robert, et al. “Factors influencing consumption of nutrient rich forest foods in rural Cameroon.” Appetite 97 (2016): 176–184.
