CENTRAL AFRICA

BEVERAGES

Except among Moslems, homemade beer is the traditional relaxing or social drink throughout Africa. Herding peoples use wild honey or grain acquired by trading to make their brew; in grain-growing areas, it is made with corn, sorghum. or millet; in the rain-forests, mashed bananas are the base.

In some places special trees or plants peculiar to an area provide the makings for the beer. One such is the Maroela- boom (Maroela tree) that grows in northern South West Africa, northern Botswana, and in parts of Rhodesia and southern Zambia. A Swedish-born naturalist and explorer, John Andersson, first described the tree to Europeans in a book published in 1875:

".. a huge-stemmed wide-spreading tree, with small elon- gated leaves, yielding in ordinary years tons and tons of a small apple-looking fruit; but it is only in appearance, for it contains a strong kernel, surrounded by a fleshy pulp, which defies your utmost efforts to detach it. By removing the skin, however, an agreeable, sweet, acidulous flavour is obtained. As the fruit begins to ripen it falls to the ground, where it is carefully gathered by the natives who convert it into a kind of beer. This is done by simply removing the peel, and then throwing it into some vessel partially filled with water. In a day or two it is fit for use, and is said to be very intoxicating."

A friend who has lived in South West Africa told me he once tasted Maroelaboom beer in Ovamboland in northern South West Africa and, as he said, "found its sourish taste refreshing and for sure, intoxicating."

It isn't only the people who prize the Maroelaboom fruit. In season when the fruit falls to the ground and begins to ferment, it is relished by elephants who become quite drunk on it and can become dangerous.

Some kind of grain, however, is most widely used for beer. This recipe African languages and literature at the University of Wisconsin and previously a long-time British colonial officer in northern Nigeria. He got it from a Hausa-speaker and trans lated it literally for me:

GIYA (BEER)

First day: start this morning to soak 10 tia (1 tia is about 2 pints) of dawa (sorghum) in water for a whole day.

Second day: pour off the water and spread the seed on mats early in the morning. Then cover the seed and allow it to ferment in this cool and shady place.

Third day: in the morning take out 1 tia of this dawa that is fermenting, allow it to dry and then grind it up. From a tukunya (cooking pot) which holds a tulu (3 gallons) of water take out enough water to add to the ground-up dawa so as to cook it something like tuwo (thick porridge or foofoo). This work would normally be done sometime in the afternoon. When this mixture begins to boil, take it off the fire and add it to the rest of the water in the tukunya. This part of the giya is called the male.

Fourth day: in the afternoon, cook the male brew for the second time.

Fifth day: take the remaining 9 tia of dawa, which is to be considered the female part of the brew and which has been standing all this time, and place this in a drum containing 5 tulu of water (15 gallons). Cook this slowly all day until afternoon. Then add the male part of the brew to this female part and put it aside to cool overnight.

Sixth day: drink the brew.

Seventh day: sleep.