Chappati complaints and biriani cravings: the aesthetics of food in colonial Zanzibari institutions

Abstract

This article examines prison and asylum diets in colonial Zanzibar, between 1928 to 1962. The aesthetics of food is considered here from the perspective of the consumer. Food was the principal issue of complaint among both prisoners and asylum inmates. The British officials who organized catering in these institutions paid little or no attention to the social significance of food for those who would consume it, and therefore paid the price in terms of unrest and agitation in these institutions. Most complaints focused on the aesthetics of food, and these are explored in detail so as to understand the nature of patients’ and prisoners' complaints. Why did these carefully crafted diets create so much conflict? What were the complaints? What do the complaints reveal about patients’ and prisoners' expectations about food aesthetics? It will be shown that personal preferences and cultural norms dictated eating habits, but what a person ate – and how it was eaten – also served as strong indicators of identity.

Keywords:

• Food
• Zanzibar
• colonial institutions
• nutrition
• diet

Acknowledgements

Thanks to James McCann for sparking my initial interest in this subject. Natalie Mettler, Ari Fogelman, Brian Casady and Chelsea Shields-Strayer all helped refine my ideas. In Zanzibar, Juli McGruder generously shared archival references, her time, and her home. Abdul Sheriff allowed me to present a version of this paper at the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute. This paper was produced while conducting my dissertation research in 2008, which was funded through the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Notes

1. Any investigation into food must examine both creation and consumption. The topic of diet creation is addressed in a companion paper: Graboyes, “Good Food, Ridiculous Diets and a Well Fed Swahili.”

2. Fair, Pastimes and Politics, 27.

3. Hansen and Macmillan, Food in Sub-Saharan Africa; Brantley, Feeding Families; Wylie, Starving on a Full Stomach; Akyeampong, Drink, Power and Cultural Change; McCann, Maize and Grace; Iliffe, Famine in Zimbabwe; Mandala, The End of Chidyerano; Willis, Potent Brews; Vaughan, Story of an African Famine.

4. Diefenbacher, “The Implementation of the Lunatic Asylum in Africa”; McCulloch, Colonial Psychiatry and ‘The African Mind’; Sadowsky, Imperial Bedlam; Jackson, Surfacing Up; Vaughan, “Idioms of Madness”; Vaughan, Curing Their Ills; Keller, “Madness and Colonization: Psychiatry in the British and French Empires.”

5. Osseo-Asare, Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa; Chastanet, et al., Cuisine et Société en Afrique.

6. Stigand, The Land of Zinj; Pearce, Zanzibar, the Island; Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire; Dale, The Peoples of Zanzibar; Gray, History of Zanzibar; Hollingsworth, Zanzibar Under the Foreign Office; Burton, Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast; Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times; Ingrams, Chronology and Genealogies of Zanzibar Rulers; Ingrams, Zanzibar, Its History and Its People; Fitzgerald, Travels in the Coastlands of British East Africa.

7. Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar; Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar under Colonial Rule; Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters; Middleton and Campbell, Zanzibar, Its Society and Its Politics; Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution.

8. Fair, Pastimes and Politics, 47–50.

9. Super, “Food and History.”

10. Lévi-Strauss, “Le Triangle Culinaire.”

11. Richards, Hunger and Work in a Savage Tribe.

12. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine, and Class.

13. Flynn, Food, Culture and Survival in an African City; Guyer, Feeding African Cities; Howard and Millard. Hunger and Shame.

14. Clark, “Thoughts for Food, I.”

15. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine, and Class, 98.

16. New ingredients could arrive in the form of new crops, which were only adaptable if specialized knowledge traveled with the item. Judith Carney shows the importance of agricultural knowledge in Black Rice. The original study of agricultural exchange is Alfred Crosby's The Columbian Exchange.

17. “Nutritional Review of the Natives of Zanzibar,” 1937. BA 8/8. Zanzibar National Archive. [Hereafter “ZNA.”]

18. Burton, Zanzibar, 242–47.

19. Ruete, Memoirs of an Arabian Princess, 286.

20. Pearce, Zanzibar Island Metropolis, 223.

21. Information shared by participants at a presentation of this paper at the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute on May 30, 2008 in Stone Town, Zanzibar.

22. There is a file of newspaper clippings and after a negative article was published in the Samachar, someone was sent to discuss with the editor about “writing less violent and wild articles in future.” April 30, 1925, AB 61/54, ZNA.

23. In 1954, trainees at a government hospital had a grievance about the institutional diet and they appealed to the Young Comorian Association, the African Association and the Arab Association. The African Association eventually agreed to help by visiting the medical officer. There was also a letter to the editor published in the KiSwahili newspaper Mwongozi. July 2, 1954, AJ 28/7, ZNA.

24. Writer unknown, January 18, 1929, AB 61/54 (124), ZNA.

25. Writer unknown, April 25, 1929, AB 61/54 (128), ZNA.

26. Superintendent of Prisons to Chief Secretary, August 25, 1956, AJ 15/6 (84), ZNA.

27. Prison Inquiry 1928, AB 61/10, ZNA.

28. Ibid.

29. This type of “escape” resembles the slave practice of petit marronage. Rather than trying to escape permanently, slaves would leave for a short time to negotiate better treatment. Much of this literature refers to the Americas: Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica; Price, Maroon Societies. In relation to East Africa, Jonathan Glassman recounts slave flight in Feasts and Riot and “The Bondsman's New Clothes.”

30. The final report called the prison a “failed humanitarian experiment,” Prison Inquiry, AB 61/10, ZNA.

31. Prison Inquiry 1928, AB 61/10, ZNA.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Prisoners to Governor of Prisons, 5 November 1928, AB 61/54 (108a), ZNA. I have omitted one short paragraph of the original letter that describes how many different complaints had been made to a variety of British officials in the medical department.

35. During the prison break, 80–90 men escaped and less than a dozen prisoners remained. Since the letter was signed by 20 prisoners, we know that at least ten men were involved in both letter signing and breaking out, if not more.

36. Burton, Zanzibar, 220.

37. Achaya, Indian Food.

38. Governor of Prisons to Superintendent of Prisons, May 1930, AB 61/54 (179), ZNA.

39. Superintendent of Prisons to Acting Governor of Prisons, May 23, 1930, AB 61/54 (176), ZNA.

40. Ibid.

41. Governor of Prisons to Superintendent of Prisons, May 1930.

42. May 1930, AB 61/54 (183), ZNA.

43. Writer Unknown, September 22, 1962, AJ 27/733 (68), ZNA.

44. “Biriani” is the same as “biliani.” The letters “r” and “l” are often substituted in KiSwahili.

45. Mental Hospital Superintendent Billington to Director of Medical Services, December 15, 1962, AJ 27/733 (119), ZNA.

46. Statement by John McArthur, December 15, 1962, AJ 27/733 (123), ZNA.

47. Medical Superintendent Mental Hospital to Director of Medical Services, December 18, 1962, AJ 27/733 (120), ZNA.

48. Ayto, The Glutton's Glossary, 26; Heinemann English Dictionary, 93. Biriani can also be spelled “biryani” and “biriyani.”

49. Croft-Cooke, The Gorgeous Feast, 49.

50. Mazrui, “Mombasa: Three Stages Towards Globalization,” 159–0.

51. Whether “biriani” refers to just the thick meat sauce or also to the rice it is served with depends on who you ask.

52. This information came from a combination of sources: discussions with cooks in Zanzibar, observations of biriani's preparation, and eating biriani.

53. Medical Specialist Kenyon to Director of Medical Services, December 19, 1962, AJ 27/733 (121), ZNA.

54. Soud bin Ali bin Hamoud to Mental Hospital Superintendent Billington, December 1962, AJ 27/733 (118), ZNA.