It has opened my eyes to the 'wonderful world of maize' and to an Africa that I never knew existed before. In so doing, it has shaken and changed my perception of what being African means. Now I wonder what it means to be an African in our fast globalizing world. Is it your skin color, the food you eat or the way you conduct yourself? Consider that some time back, the Irish were considered 'non-white' for immigration purposes into the USA, and the Japanese, at another point in history, were considered 'white'. If race is so flexible a concept, changing according to the context in which it is being used, then what does it ultimately mean to us?
Let’s turn back to McCann’s Maize and Grace: Contrary to what our colonial history has taught, the “coming of the Europeans”, had little to do with a 'civilizing mission' that came into being at the turn of the 19th century. In fact, European activities had actually been ongoing on the African continent since the 'Colombian years’. It seems likely that the myth of the 19th century “coming of the Europeans” was a tactical shift in historiography to explain or justify colonization after the fact.
The slave trading ships, for example, were provisioned by the maize grown by Africans on the West coast of the continent. For 400 years, starting with what some authors call the “Colombian Exchange” (in reference to the exchange of maize from South America with African slaves during the transatlantic trade), maize has been a major commodity of trade on the continent. However, Kenya, on the East coast of Africa, joined the “bandwagon of commercial maize growing” with more recent British colonization.
Today, although the rest of the world uses maize mainly in industry and to feed cattle and other livestock, in sub-Saharan Africa, maize is increasingly being used primarily as a staple food for humans. In fact, in some communities in Kenya, you cannot claim to have eaten food unless your meal included the maize-based dish, ugali. Traditionally, this ugali would have been made from millet and sorghum flour. It was humbling to learn from McCann’s book that maize (among many other 'African' crops) is, contrary to common perceptions, an alien food on the continent, and that because it is a poor source of protein and some B vitamins, is unsuitable as a dietary staple food. Apparently, maize causes ill health among consumers who are overly dependent on it. The common disease such a diet causes is known as pellagra.
According to McCann, there is also a possibility that maize is associated with severe malaria. The evidence for this comes from a study done in Ethiopia which showed that maize pollen served as 'food' for earlier forms of the anopheles mosquito- a common carrier of the malaria parasite on the continent. However, maize has its attractive side. It is easy to grow, rewards farmers well, is tasty and has a ready outlet on the national and international markets.
McCann’s observations have brought to mind a question I would like to raise: What makes us African? I think this is a valid question, considering that our daily staple is not 'the food of our forefathers’. If our staple diet is alien, what does that make us? Is it any wonder then that we sub-Saharan Africans aspire to alien things and alien values?
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