Bread in Africa

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While domestication of grains for easy harvesting may have originated in Anatolia and Caucasus, about 10,000 years ago, the Horn of Africa was certainly not far behind. Grinding of grains into flour with sliding stones, and the baking of flat breads, is far older. Today, the main breads of Africa are still made under very primitive conditions. in a manner possibly in place before the dawn of history.   Photo by Lelaw Wondimu distributed under license Creative Commons.

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North Africa   -   The Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania), Egypt, Sudan   Baghrir   -   [Beghrir]  This is a popular bread in the Maghreb region, often eaten for breakfast with a mix of butter and honey, but also with jams. It is made from semolina or wheat flour.   Photo by Tamorlan distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v3.0 Unported.   Pita Bread   -   [Pita (Greek); Pocket Bread; Pide (Turkey); Khubz Arabi (Arabic)]  This lightly leavened wheat bread is very popular throughout North Africa, and far beyond. The ethnic markets here in the Los Angeles region are piled high with pita, in both white (photo) and whole wheat versions, in the 7 inch and larger sizes. The earliest Arabic recipes (10th century) have these baked in a Tandoor, but today they are usually made in continuous industrial ovens so as to meet the high demand. Pita is baked in a very hot oven at 450°F/232°C or higher, causing the disk to puff up dramatically. When removed from the oven the disk collapses, but the two sides remain separated, so the bread can be opened into a pocket. Throughout the region, street foods of all kinds are packed into pita pockets. The photo specimen was a 7 inch diameter disk 0.15 inch thick. Half the top layer was removed to show the inside. Enriched wheat flour, water, yeast, salt, calcium propionate. Kisra Rhaheeefa  Kisra Rhaheeefa is much like Ethiopia's Injera and used similarly, but is made from Sorghum Flour or Wheat Flour rather than Teff. The "Kisra Rhaheeefa" name differentiates it from "Kisra Aseeda", which is a Sorghum Porridge.   Photo by Mohammed Elfatih Hamadien distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v4.0 International. The Horn of Africa   -   Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia   Injera   -   [Injera (Amharic); (Bidenaa (Oromo)]  This is the bread of Ethiopia and Eritrea, usually made from Teff. It was traditionally, and is often still today, made very large, to fit the table for which it would be the tablecloth. Scoops of stews and other recipes are placed directly on it. Diners tear off pieces of the "tablecloth" and use them to pick up the food. Today, especially in restaurants it is often made smaller and served on an Indian thali, or a very large plate.   Photo by PhoTom distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v4.0 International. This is a sour dough bread, made with a leavened batter similar to thin pancake batter. The batter is baked on a large clay or metal tray, over moderate heat, and on one side only. Bubbles on the top side burst, giving the bread a spongy texture, almost like honeycomb tripe, which is very good at holding sauces. Temperature is regulated so it sets through, but does not brown on the bottom (see the rolled examples in the photo at the top of the page). It can be made using white or brown Teff, or a mix. Farmers say the white Teff is preferred to the brown by most of their customers. Lahoh   -   [Luhuh (Somali), Laxoox, Lahooh, Canjeero, Canjeelo, Anjeero] This bread is popular in Somalia, Djibouti and Yemen, but now also popular in Israel, introduced by Yemenite Jews. It is a fermented sour dough bread usually made of Sorghum Flour or Corn Flour and cooked on circular metal stove called a taawa or daawo. In Yemen, it is often served by street vendors.   Photo by Gilabrand at en.wikipedia distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v3.0 Unported attribution required. East Africa   -   Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan   Chapati Long influenced by India, East Africa has adopted the Indian Chapati as their main form of bread - but they use white flour instead of the whole wheat Atta flour used in India. As it is very inconvenient for me to produce Chipatis, I use Flour Tortillas, easily available here in Southern California. I prefer the small 5 inch diameter ones. Incidentally, Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas make an excellent substitute for Indian Chapatis   Kisra Rhaheeefa   South Sudan (Christian and Native Religion) is now a separate country from Sudan (all Muslim) and is moving strongly into the East African community. One thing they still have in common with Sudan is Sudan's Kisra Rhaheeefa.

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Bread and Bread-Baking Technologies in Africa

Bread is a dietary staple in North Africa, Northeastern Africa, and the Horn of Africa, and it is important in the diet of many Saharan and sub-Saharan people. African breads are made from the flours of a variety of cereals, tubers, and corms that are baked, steamed, and sometimes fried to produce pancake, flat bread, leavened or slightly leavened loaves, or cakes using ovens, hearths, griddles, pots, and molds. Technical choice in bread baking is associated with the baking properties of bread ingredients and social group’s culinary practices and preferences and does not represent evolutionary stages.

The Bread/Oven Porridge/Pot Bread/Griddle Traditions

Research of Africa’s culinary practices includes the history of bread consumption and its associated technologies, an investigation that is far from exhaustive. Several researchers observe a general (but not absolute) culinary divide between bread-based cuisines that use ovens and griddles...

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    Additional Reading

1. Chazan, M., & Lehner, M. (1990). An ancient analogy: Pot baked bread in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Paléorient, 16(2), 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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3. Gebrekidan, B., & Gebrehiwot, B. (1982). Sorghum injera preparations and quality parameters. In L. W. Rooney & D. S. Murty (Eds.), Proceedings of the international symposium on sorghum grain quality (pp. 55–66). Patancheru, India: ICRISAT.Google Scholar
4. Larsen, H. (1936). On baking in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom. Acta Archaeologica, 7, 51–57.Google Scholar
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6. Samuel, D. (1989). Their staff of life: Initial investigations on ancient Egyptian bread baking. In B. J. Kemp (Ed.), Amarna reports V (pp. 253–290). London: Egypt Exploration Society.Google Scholar 
    
   Egyptian Bread Websites

1. Amarna West Site blog, British Museum. http://blog.amarawest.britishmuseum.org/2013/01/14/amara-west-2013-expect-the-unexpected/
2. Harvard University. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aera/Giza_Pages/Aeragram_Pages/AERAG1_1/bakeries.htm
3. Hilary Stewart on Ancient Egyptian bread baking. http://ancientfoods.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/ancient-egypt-bread/
4. Theban mapping project. http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/articles/article_15.4.html
5. University of Memphis. http://www.prosphora.org/page38.html
6. Sally Grainger and Roman bread, British Museum. http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2013/07/19/a-very-versatile-roman-oven/

Holy Martyr Terence & 40 Holy Martyrs at Carthage / St Miltiades, the African Pope (April 10)

 

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Holy Martyr Terence & 40 Holy Martyrs at Carthage / St Miltiades, the African Pope (April 10)

 

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Τυνησία - Λιβύη: Πολύνεκρα ναυάγια σκαφών που μετέφεραν μετανάστες

 
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Ο απολογισμός των θυμάτων του ναυαγίου πλοίου γεμάτου με μετανάστες, κυρίως υπηκόους χωρών της υποσαχάριας Αφρικής, που βυθίστηκε στα ανοικτά των ακτών της Τυνησίας νωρίτερα αυτή την εβδομάδα αυξήθηκε στους 61 νεκρούς, δήλωσε αξιωματούχος χθες Σάββατο. Στο σκάφος που απέπλευσε από το νησί Κερκένα το περασμένο Σαββατοκύριακο με σκοπό να φθάσει στις ακτές της Ιταλίας είχαν επιβιβαστεί δεκάδες άνθρωποι. Από την Πέμπτη, οι τυνησιακές έχουν κηδέψει δεκάδες από τα θύματα του ναυαγίου.

Η ακτοφυλακή ανέσυρε κι άλλα πτώματα, συμπεριλαμβανομένου αυτού ενός βρέφους, με τον απολογισμό να φθάνει έτσι τους 61 νεκρούς, σύμφωνα με αξιωματούχο της Πολιτικής Προστασίας. Ο προηγούμενος απολογισμός, που είχε ανακοινωθεί την Παρασκευή, έκανε λόγο για 55 νεκρούς. Πέρυσι 86 Αφρικανοί μετανάστες είχαν πνιγεί όταν το πλεούμενο στο οποίο είχαν επιβιβαστεί για να φθάσουν στην Ευρώπη από τη Λιβύη βυθίστηκε στα ανοικτά των τυνησιακών ακτών. Επρόκειτο για ένα από τα χειρότερα ναυάγια που κλήθηκαν να διαχειριστούν οι αρχές της Τυνησίας.

Η μη κυβερνητική οργάνωση Τυνησιακό Φόρουμ για τα Οικονομικά και Κοινωνικά Δικαιώματα έκρινε νωρίτερα αυτή την εβδομάδα ότι η νέα τραγωδία αποτέλεσε «αναπόφευκτη συνέπεια της περιοριστικής πολιτικής της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης ως προς τη μετανάστευση», καθώς οι Βρυξέλλες επικεντρώνονται περισσότερο «στην ασφάλεια» των κρατών μελών της παρά στην ανθρωπιστική αντιμετώπιση του προβλήματος «με δεδομένη την κατάσταση» στην εμπόλεμη Λιβύη.

Την ίδια ώρα 12 άνθρωποι αγνοούνται μετά το ναυάγιο της βάρκας στην οποία είχαν επιβιβαστεί μετανάστες που ήλπιζαν να φθάσουν στην Ευρώπη από τη Λιβύη, δήλωσαν επιζήσαντες χθες Σάββατο. Το ναυάγιο έγινε στα ανοικτά της πόλης Ζαουίγια, δυτικά της Τρίπολης, της λιβυκής πρωτεύουσας. Περίπου 20 από τους μετανάστες διασώθηκαν, ενημέρωσε ο Διεθνής Οργανισμός Μετανάστευσης (ΔΟΜ), που ανήκει στο σύστημα του ΟΗΕ.

Οι επιζήσαντες είπαν πως 12 μετανάστες αγνοούνται, συμπλήρωσε ο ΔΟΜ μέσω Twitter, χωρίς να υπεισέλθει σε λεπτομέρειες. Τα τελευταία χρόνια, η Λιβύη, όπου επικρατεί χάος μετά την πτώση του καθεστώτος του Μουάμαρ Καντάφι το 2011, έχει μετατραπεί σε μαγνήτη για τους μετανάστες που αποπειρώνται να φθάσουν στην Ευρώπη διά θαλάσσης συχνά με κίνδυνο της ζωής τους, με κάθε άλλο παρά αξιόπλοα σκάφη.

What the Early Church Can Teach Us About the Coronavirus

 

March 12, 2020  |  Moses Y. Lee

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The early church was no stranger to plagues, epidemics, and mass hysteria. In fact, according to both Christian and also non-Christian accounts, one of the main catalysts for the church’s explosive growth in its early years was how Christians navigated disease, suffering, and death. The church’s posture made such a strong impression on Roman society that even pagan Roman emperors complained to pagan priests about their declining numbers, telling them to step up their game. 
So what did Christians do differently that shook the Roman Empire? And what can the early church teach us in light of the coronavirus? 

Non-Christian Response to Epidemics

In AD 249 to 262, Western civilization was devastated by one of the deadliest pandemics in its history. Though the exact cause of the plague is uncertain, the city of Rome was said to have lost an estimated 5,000 people a day at the height of the outbreak. One eyewitness, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria [image], wrote that although the plague did not discriminate between Christians and non-Christians, “Its full impact fell on [non-Christians].” Having noted the difference between Christian and non-Christian responses to the plague, he says of the non-Christians in Alexandria:

At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treating unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.

Non-Christian accounts confirm this sentiment. A century later, the emperor Julian attempted to curb the growth of Christianity after the plague by leading a campaign to establish pagan charities that mirrored the work of Christians in his realm. In an AD 362 letter, Julian complained that the Hellenists needed to match the Christians in virtue, blaming the recent growth of Christianity on their

“benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead, and the pretended holiness of their lives.” 

Elsewhere he wrote, 

“For it is a disgrace that . . . the impious Galilaeans [Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well.” 

Though Julian questioned the motives of Christians, his embarrassment over Hellenic charities confirms pagan efforts fell massively short of Christian standards of serving the sick and poor, especially during epidemics. According to Rodney Stark in The Rise of Christianity, this is because “for all that [Julian] urged pagan priests to match these Christian practices, there was little or no response because there were no doctrinal bases or traditional practices for them to build upon.”

Christian Response to Epidemics

If the non-Christian response to the plague was characterized by self-protection, self-preservation, and avoiding the sick at all costs, the Christian response was the opposite. According to Dionysius, the plague served as a “schooling and testing” for Christians. In a detailed description of how Christians responded to the plague in Alexandria, he writes of how “the best” among them honorably served the sick until they themselves caught the disease and died:

Most of our brother-Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of the danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbours and cheerfully accepting their pains.

Similarly, in Pontius’s biography of Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage [icon], he writes of how the bishop reminded believers to serve not only fellow Christians but also non-Christians during the plague:

There is nothing remarkable in cherishing merely our own people with the due attentions of love, but that one might become perfect who should do something more than heathen men or publicans, one who, overcoming evil with good, and practicing a merciful kindness like that of God, should love his enemies as well. . . . Thus the good was done to all men, not merely to the household of faith.

The impact of this service was twofold: (1) Christian sacrifice for their fellow believers stunned the unbelieving world as they witnessed communal love like they’d never seen (John 13:35), and (2) Christian sacrifice for non-Christians resulted in the early church experiencing exponential growth as non-Christian survivors, who benefited from the care of their Christian neighbors, converted to the faith en masse. 

Christian Response to Coronavirus

As we continue to wrestle with how to respond to the coronavirus, notice how non-Christians in the Roman Empire emphasized self preservation while the early church emphasized fearless, sacrificial service. Whereas non-Christians fled from epidemics and abandoned their sick loved ones as they feared the unknown, Christians marched into epidemics and served both Christians and also non-Christians, seeing their own suffering as an opportunity to spread the gospel and model Christlike love.

If the non-Christian response to the plague was characterized by self-protection, self-preservation, and avoiding the sick at all costs, the Christian response was the opposite.

How might we put that posture into practice in the face of COVID-19, setting ourselves apart from the world in how we respond to the growing epidemic? Perhaps we begin by resisting the fear that is leading to panic in various sectors of society—instead modeling peace and calm in the midst of rising anxiety all around us. Perhaps we choose to patronize local Asian American restaurants and businesses that other Americans are avoiding due to fear-based stereotyping. We might also seek to sacrificially serve our neighbors by prudently abiding by the advice of medical professionals to help slow the spread of the disease. Instead of just our own health we should prioritize the health of the wider community, especially the most vulnerable citizens, by exercising an abundance of caution without perpetuating fear, hysteria, or misinformation. This might mean costs for us—canceling travel or planned events, or even self-quarantine if we think we’ve been exposed—but we should accept these costs with joy.
“Other people would not think this a time for festival,” Dionysius said of the epidemic of his day. “[But] far from being a time of distress, it is a time of unimaginable joy.” To be clear, Dionysius was not celebrating the death and suffering that accompany epidemics. Rather, he was rejoicing in the opportunity such circumstances present for testing our faith––to go out of our way to love and serve our neighbors, spreading gospel hope, in both word and deed, in times of great fear. 

Notes of our blog

This article has been republished from a protestant blog. About Protestantism you can see the posts:

Memory Eternal, Fr. Peter Gillquist...
Matthew Gallatin: Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells 

 

The Early Church is the Orthodox Church. You can see:

Ancient Christian faith (Orthodox Church) in Africa

St. Simon of Cyrene & Black History Month

Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa (& the Decolonization of Africa) 

African Initiated Churches in Search of Orthodoxy...
How “White” is the Orthodox Church?