review: FOOD PLANET-Mali

Today's post will be reviewing the chapter for Mali on the book FOOD PLANET ;))

Their expense on food is only less than 27$ a week, most of which is spent on grains. And very little on meat/fish, packaged food, etc.

Here's the comparison of food culture between Mali and Japan.

Something notable about culture in Mali is that, as it's an Islamic nation, polygamous relationships are fairly common. According to their religious rule, the husband is allowed to marry up to 4 women at the same time under the condition: he can treat all fis wives equally both financially, and emotionally. 

The family they interviewed for the chapter was an example of such marriage.

The husband: Soumana (46)

The two co-wives: Fatoumana (33) and Pama (35)

They have 9 children in the family in total. 

The wives said: it's important for the husband to treat the wives equally. When the wives don't get along, it creates so many problems in the household. Sadly, that is happening a lot in their village. However, it's not their case fortunately. Soumana treats them both finantially/emotionally equally and they get along quite well. 

Such shape of marriage is nowadays far less common than it used to. And we can see how that allows us to see their unique way to function as a family as well as their particular habits regarding "to eat".

Each of the two is responsible for preparing meals on different day. It corresponds to in which house the husband sleeps on the day. (Yes, the wives have their own house and the husband goes back and forth)

On this day, it was Fatoumana's turn to cook! She's cooking porridge, called tô: thinner compared to other millets in the other areas of Mali. On this day it was enjoyed with salt, oil, and tamarind.