The Taste of Ethnographic Things

Paul Stoller is a Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University. To date, he is

the author of 14 books-- memoirs, novels and ethnographies-- and in his early work, he has
conducted research among the Songhay people in Niger and Mali in West Africa and among
West African immigrants that reside in New York City. This research of his studies the
anthropology of religion, visual anthropology, economic anthropology, and the anthropology of
senses.

Cheryl Olkes is a sociologist and the director of Harmattan, a gallery of African arts in
Washington, D.C.

● “Today you are learning about us, but to understand us you will have to grow old with us.”
This is a quote by one of the significant people who play a part in this book: Adamu
Jenitongo, zima (or priest) of Tillaberi, Niger.

In the book The Taste of Ethnographic Things, Paul Stoller works with Cheryl Olkes.
They both travel to Niger to conduct a study of the medicinal properties of plants that are used
in Songhay ethnomedicine. The following is an excerpt of the first chapter of the book that coins
the same name as the book’s title. This chapter talks about Stoller and Olkes’ experience of the
Songhay culture and life.

“A guest is God in your house.”

Songhay adage (saying)

This saying is representative of Songhay hospitality. When strangers are welcomed as a

guest in a Songhay household, they receive the best treatment that, more often than not, Songhay
hosts will go out of their way to offer. The indulgence of Songhay hospitality is one that Stoller
and Olkes had experienced.

This is what Stoller and Olkes experienced:

1) Two Weeks with the Songhay
Paul Stoller and Cheryl Olkes went to the compound of Adamu Jenitongo.

Adamu Jenitongo is an old healer Stoller has known for 15 years. He is perhaps the most
knowledgeable healer in all of western Niger.
They came to Tillaberi and planned to stay for 2 weeks to discuss about the medicinal properties
of plants with Adamu.

Upon arriving in the mudbrick house, they were told to stay and were given their best straw
mattresses. Adamu told his son Moru’s wife Djebo to prepare fine sauces for them.
Tillaberi is a town located in the northwest part of Niger (capital: Niamey). It is the capital of
the Tillaberi department and the Tillaberi Region.

In the two weeks spent in Tillaberi, Stoller and Olkes had the pleasure of eating a variety
of foods and sauces.
For lunch, they sometimes ate:
- hoy bi (black sauce)
- suruundu (rice cooked in a tomato sauce).

For dinner, they sometimes ate:

- rice with a tomato-based sauce with red pepper and sorrel
- millet paste with peanut sauce

Millet is the staple of the Songhay diet, and is usually consumed as a pancake, porridge, or
paste. The paste is made by mixing millet flour in boiling water until the mixture stiffens, and it is
topped by meatless sauces usually made from okra, baobab leaf, or peanuts. Stoller and Olkes were
offered millet served as a paste with peanut sauce.

The sauces that the Songhay serve are usually seasoned and meatless. With guests around,
however, these sauces would then contain meat in them. Meat is a rare ingredient in most Songhay
meals. Like the Songhay adage goes, a guest is God in your house. When the Songhay people
entertain foreigners—Europeans like Stoller and Olkes—they do not change their diet staples but
one-up the quality of the sauces they make.

2) The Uninvited
Word about the arrival of Stoller and Olkes and the warm welcome they received from
Adamu and his family spread in the neighborhood. This attracted a lot of uninvited neighbors.
During mealtimes, these uninvited neighbors would show up and linger, well aware that the
head of the household would be obliged to feed anyone and everyone who would show up.
Because this was happening, Djebo had to double the amount of food to prepare. The food was
mediocre, but the guests wouldn’t mind so long as they could feed themselves with rice, meat, and
sauce. Of all these guests, however, stood out a certain man who would unashamedly show up for
every mealtime and enjoy the luxury of the food just as much as everyone else did.

3) Gao Boro
Let’s get to know the man everyone called Gao Boro.

Gao Boro literally translates to the man from Gao. He was literally a refugee from Gao, in
the Republic of Mali, who had lived in Tillaberi for four months. He had created a perfect rent
scam that pulled him through long enough for him to last those months.

In Songhay customs, landlords open their properties to anyone who wishes to stay around as
long as they pay at the end of the first month.

Gao Boro would find a landlord that would let him stay in their property until the end of
the month, when he’d be asked for his rent pay. He’d make the excuse that he was broke and be
thrown out eventually. Then, he’d find another unwary landlord. Gao Boro had done this for three
times now by the time Stoller and Olkes were in Tillaberi. They then realized how Gao Boro
managed to stretch his food budget— he took advantage of the Songhay’s well-known generosity.
As he successfully stayed around the neighborhood by his scam, he would cover the 50 meter
distance and show up to Adamu’s compound just to get food for free.

The food got people in the compound talking. Mediocre as it was, they still enjoyed them
and the sauces, but the food still earned words of complaint. Adamu and his wives, Jemma and
Hadjo, complained about the meat’s toughness. It turns out that Djebo would refuse to tenderize
the meat before cooking it in the sauce. Djebo even ignored Olkes’ suggestion of marinating the
meat. However, everyone still ate Djebo’s food and sauces, up until the last day of Stoller and
Olkes’ visit. This was when Djebo served bad sauce.

4) Bad Sauce
It was the last day of Stoller and Olkes’ stay in Tillaberi. Stoller had discussed medicinal
properties of plants and the Songhay philosophy of healing with Adamu, while Olkes had walked
either kilometers and saw people in town and at the market. Back at the compound at dusk, they
washed themselves in the bath house, then sat on the straw mattresses waiting for Djebo. Djebo
arrived, bringing a large casserole of rice and a small casserole of sauce. When Stoller opened
the small casserole, he was introduced to a sour odor, and Olkes wrinkled her nose. During this
time, the uninvited guests started arriving.
 When asked what it was, Stoller answered that it was fukko hoy (sauce made from the
boiled leaves of the fukko plant). He asked Olkes to shine a flashlight on the sauce, and when she
did, they saw a viscous green liquid. Stoller then picked up the sauce and poured some over the
rice, then took a spoonful to try it. Stoller exclaimed that it was the worst sauce he ever ate, and
Olkes agreed, saying it was awful. The fukko hoy was plainly seasoned with salt and nothing else.
Other people said worse, saying the sauce smelled and tasted like bird droppings. Moru took his
rice and sauce and dumped it in the compound garbage pit. Jemma, one of Adamu’s wives, said
the sauce and Djebo brought shame upon the compound, and Hadjo wondered how anyone could
possibly prepare a horrible sauce for the guests in the compound. Even Gao Boro, the refugee-
fugitive from Mali, declared he wouldn’t eat sauce that was fit for an animal. And just like that,
from everyone’s perspective, the bad sauce was in bad taste.
References:
Cheryl Olkes. Retrieved 11 April 2021, from
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/O/C/au5846016.html
Paul Stoller | HuffPost. (2021). Retrieved 10 April 2021, from
https://www.huffpost.com/author/paul-stoller
Songhay - Introduction, Location, Language, Folklore, Religion, Major holidays, Rites of passage.
Retrieved 12 April 2021, from https://www.everyculture.com/wc/Japan-to-Mali/Songhay.html
Wikipedia contributors. (2021, March 20). Tillabéri. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillab%C3%A9ri