On Niger: the pot, the patience, the argument.
NSouthern Niger cooks in the grammar of its Hausa and Zarma neighbors.
The dish arrived at our kitchen the way it arrives at every kitchen — inherited, contested, half-remembered, adjusted. We cooked it the way we were shown, and then we cooked it the way we were corrected, and then we cooked it the way that tasted right. It took us 12 tries before we were willing to print it.
“You cannot see the rice become itself if you are interrupting it.”
This page is not the final word. It is a footnote on a conversation that has been going on for six hundred years. If we got something wrong, write us a letter. We publish them.
