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Food and drink of the Fur
Food of the Fur as narrated by Prof. Mirghani Deshaab
/ answered
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
[1] Hawasha: A plot of land is 3 acres for the farmer for a continuous agricultural cycle throughout the year in the New Halfa Agricultural Project.
[2] Rakuba: A thatched shed under which the farmer rests and may live.
[3] Marisa here is incorrectly defined, its definition will come later.
[4] Jubraka: A plot of land belonging to a family in the land of the Fur in Sudan.
[5] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Sharpening the Minds with the Biography of the Lands of Sudan and the Arabs - Investigation by Dr. Khalil Mahmoud Asaker and Dr. Mustafa Muhammad Musaad - Cairo - The Egyptian House for Authorship and Translation - p. 283.
[6] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Sharpening the Minds with the Biography of the Lands of Sudan and the Arabs - Investigation by Dr. Khalil Mahmoud Asaker and Dr. Mustafa Muhammad Musaad - Cairo - The Egyptian House for Authorship and Translation - p. 284.
[7] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Sharpening the Minds with the Biography of the Lands of Sudan and the Arabs - Investigation by Dr. Khalil Mahmoud Asaker and Dr. Mustafa Muhammad Musaad - Cairo - The Egyptian House for Authorship and Translation - p. 286 - 287.
[8] Safarug: A wooden boomerang, thrown at animals, such as deer and rabbits, which paralyzes their legs.
[9] Sharmoot: Slices of meat hung in the huts and houses until they dry, then pounded and sprinkled into the asida.
[10] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Previous source - p. 291
[11] Duwas: War, and the Fur wars are many and famous.
[12] Muhammad Adam Salih Muhammad - refugee in Wadi Halfa - 57 years old. The session with him - after informing him - was held on 6/28/2024 in Wadi Halfa market. He is an acquaintance of the researcher.
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
[1] Hawasha: A plot of land is 3 acres for the farmer for a continuous agricultural cycle throughout the year in the New Halfa Agricultural Project.
[2] Rakuba: A thatched shed under which the farmer rests and may live.
[3] Marisa here is incorrectly defined, its definition will come later.
[4] Jubraka: A plot of land belonging to a family in the land of the Fur in Sudan.
[5] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Sharpening the Minds with the Biography of the Lands of Sudan and the Arabs - Investigation by Dr. Khalil Mahmoud Asaker and Dr. Mustafa Muhammad Musaad - Cairo - The Egyptian House for Authorship and Translation - p. 283.
[6] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Sharpening the Minds with the Biography of the Lands of Sudan and the Arabs - Investigation by Dr. Khalil Mahmoud Asaker and Dr. Mustafa Muhammad Musaad - Cairo - The Egyptian House for Authorship and Translation - p. 284.
[7] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Sharpening the Minds with the Biography of the Lands of Sudan and the Arabs - Investigation by Dr. Khalil Mahmoud Asaker and Dr. Mustafa Muhammad Musaad - Cairo - The Egyptian House for Authorship and Translation - p. 286 - 287.
[8] Safarug: A wooden boomerang, thrown at animals, such as deer and rabbits, which paralyzes their legs.
[9] Sharmoot: Slices of meat hung in the huts and houses until they dry, then pounded and sprinkled into the asida.
[10] Muhammad bin Omar Al-Tunisi - Previous source - p. 291
[11] Duwas: War, and the Fur wars are many and famous.
[12] Muhammad Adam Salih Muhammad - refugee in Wadi Halfa - 57 years old. The session with him - after informing him - was held on 6/28/2024 in Wadi Halfa market. He is an acquaintance of the researcher.
