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Taste of home
The taste of home is something we all miss today and every now and then there will be some food we crave. We also miss how we used to enjoy meals together and all the memories associated with it but because of the war, it is very unlikely anybody will receive a box of food from home and will have to make do with local alternatives.
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What food brings back memories of home?
I asked ten Sudanese people to list the food items they used to take with them when they were travelling somewhere such as to another city or abroad.
The question took people back to different periods of their lives and invoked interesting memories. One was about the metal suitcase which many Sudanese have in their homes, stashed away under beds or in dusty store rooms containing everything from old photographs and papers to china dinner sets. The metal box for some was associated with their experience of starting their military service and living in a dorm with many other young men enrolled on the mandatory training. Memories of this particular metal suitcase were of it being tied firmly to the top of a rickety old bus, with all the other luggage, on the way to the camp. It was filled with every possible form of sweet food making it, as one person said, a ‘tahniya box.’ Tahniya or Halva, is a thick paste mainly of sugar and sesame oil which is often used as a sandwich filler.
The cardboard Ramadan food box is well-known to everyone inside and outside Sudan. Every year before Ramadan we would receive fresh produce from farms outside Khartoum brought by family members who were visiting. Distant aunts sent us their signature hilu-mur, dried sheets of fermented sorghum that are soaked to create the popular ‘sweet and sour’ drink, rugag or ‘Sudanese cornflakes’ and gargosh rusks. Other Ramadan boxes people remembered contained ground dried meat, sharmoot, or dried onions which even though you could get these in most places they never tasted the same as the ones sent from home!
People’s answers to what they took on their travels and what reminded them of home were very personal and varied from one person to another; what they loved and what they couldn’t find in the places they were going to. One person explained how her brother loved biscuits and so her mother would pack every type of biscuit into his bag. Another said her mother made her special coffee blends with local flavours while another said she brought frozen minced meat with her because she hadn’t been able to find a butcher who could supply anything that tasted the same. Royal biscuits, the soft drink Pasigianos and powdered milk were some more of the things people admitted to taking with them. Sesame seed oil, local spices including dried, ground okra and of course braided cheese were all common items people took with them regularly.
The taste of home is something we all miss today and every now and then there will be some food we crave. We also miss how we used to enjoy meals together and all the memories associated with it but because of the war, it is very unlikely anybody will receive a box of food from home and will have to make do with local alternatives.
Cover picture and designs © Zainab Gaafar
What food brings back memories of home?
I asked ten Sudanese people to list the food items they used to take with them when they were travelling somewhere such as to another city or abroad.
The question took people back to different periods of their lives and invoked interesting memories. One was about the metal suitcase which many Sudanese have in their homes, stashed away under beds or in dusty store rooms containing everything from old photographs and papers to china dinner sets. The metal box for some was associated with their experience of starting their military service and living in a dorm with many other young men enrolled on the mandatory training. Memories of this particular metal suitcase were of it being tied firmly to the top of a rickety old bus, with all the other luggage, on the way to the camp. It was filled with every possible form of sweet food making it, as one person said, a ‘tahniya box.’ Tahniya or Halva, is a thick paste mainly of sugar and sesame oil which is often used as a sandwich filler.
The cardboard Ramadan food box is well-known to everyone inside and outside Sudan. Every year before Ramadan we would receive fresh produce from farms outside Khartoum brought by family members who were visiting. Distant aunts sent us their signature hilu-mur, dried sheets of fermented sorghum that are soaked to create the popular ‘sweet and sour’ drink, rugag or ‘Sudanese cornflakes’ and gargosh rusks. Other Ramadan boxes people remembered contained ground dried meat, sharmoot, or dried onions which even though you could get these in most places they never tasted the same as the ones sent from home!
People’s answers to what they took on their travels and what reminded them of home were very personal and varied from one person to another; what they loved and what they couldn’t find in the places they were going to. One person explained how her brother loved biscuits and so her mother would pack every type of biscuit into his bag. Another said her mother made her special coffee blends with local flavours while another said she brought frozen minced meat with her because she hadn’t been able to find a butcher who could supply anything that tasted the same. Royal biscuits, the soft drink Pasigianos and powdered milk were some more of the things people admitted to taking with them. Sesame seed oil, local spices including dried, ground okra and of course braided cheese were all common items people took with them regularly.
The taste of home is something we all miss today and every now and then there will be some food we crave. We also miss how we used to enjoy meals together and all the memories associated with it but because of the war, it is very unlikely anybody will receive a box of food from home and will have to make do with local alternatives.
Cover picture and designs © Zainab Gaafar
