Famine food or luxury food?
Hanza beans & wild Swedish mushrooms, both straight from Nature’s Pantry!

On July 16th, Sean Callahan, a top Catholic Relief Services (CRS) official, appeared before US congress to recommend “urgent response” to the people affected by the global food crisis:

In some regions of Niger, families have started eating only one meal a day. In dire circumstances, people have resorted to eating anza, a wild plant with bitter leaves, to supplement their diet.

Sean Callahan - Catholic Relief Services (CRS) July 2008

The statement above leaves me bewildered. Are we really so linked to the top 20 species of the world that when we hear of people eating other foods we simply assume they must be starving?

An Ishtar dish in the making, featuring hanza beans [Boscia senegalensis]

I love hanza. It is more exciting than chick peas and ordinary beans, and has one of the coolest shape I’ve ever seen foodwise. But would anyone refer to me as a “starving young woman in Africa” because I choose to eat local food? I would not want anyone assume I was in need just because I served myself from one of the 77,980 edible species that the majority of the world population has yet to discover!

Collecting hanza in the heart of Tanout
Copyright Eden Foundation July 2008

As for Mr Callahan’s misconception, only animals eat hanza leaves. When people talk about eating hanza, which they do throughout the Eden zone (whether it is a good year or a bad year), they refer to the fruits or to the grains.

At this time of the year, the hanza fruits are ripe. It is a sweet fruit, full of juice, and the best of all is that there is plenty of it, coming in a time when many other Nigeriens are in a tight spot (still many months left until the millet can be harvested).

Inside the hanza fruit, you find the hanza grain, that can be cooked like a bean and is very rich in proteins. You just need to know how to prepare it, which people in the bush do.

Preparing hanza beans for the evening meal
Copyright Eden Foundation

In the Eden villages, situated in the Tanout area, people harvest and save hanza beans for the year to come. That is why they are still - in a time when other aid organisations are talking about food shortages in Niger - consuming millet harvested nearly a year ago. They live off the Eden trees in their fields, and the amazing thing about that is that if you as a farmer have all the different Eden species growing in your field, you will always have fruits to harvest (in addition to the edible leaves available all year round) as they come in different seasons throughout the year.

Pounding millet in the village
Copyright Eden Foundation July 2008

Copyright Eden Foundation July 2008

I used to think that aid was all about helping people achieve a sustainable life; not to downplay their local food culture and to make them dependent on foreign aid. Which is what we do when we do not look further than the mathematics of the global food fashion.

An Eden farmer proudly presenting his hanza bush
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008

People often ask me: “Why Eden?” After all, working without a salary in the world’s least developed country may not seem to be the most beneficial equation in life. But Eden is the reason why I enjoy being in Niger so much, because through Eden, I know that the population of Tanout is finding its way to a sustainable life, which is the aim of aid in the first place.

Copyright Eden Foundation 2008

Eden does not tell its farmers how to live their lives, but strives to find a solution that is applicable to their situation, and which will enhance their life standards according to their own desires.

Copyright Eden Foundation 2008

Knowing the population you are trying to help is essential in understand not only where they are coming from, but equally important, where they want to go. The Western world is quick to assume that people want to follow in their footsteps, but I know few Nigeriens who would like to live a Western life to the full.

Copyright Eden Foundation 2008

And while I wait for the Western world to understand that the global social status of a food has nothing to do with either its taste or its quality, I continue my quest of learning from the poor.

Copyright Eden Foundation