Comment Cuisiner Son Mari a L’africaine: How-to Manual or Cautionary Tale ?
COMMENT CUISINER SON MARI A L’AFRICAINE: HOW-TO MANUAL OR CAUTIONARY TALE ?
De tous les arts, l'art culinaire est celui qui nourrit le mieux son homme. - Pierre Dac
Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She was very disturbed by the extreme poverty of her surroundings. She went to school in Douala, and she excelled in Mathematics. Calixthe Beyala traveled widely in Africa and Europe before settling in Paris, where she now lives with her daughter. Beyala has published prolifically, and her most recent novel, which came out earlier this year, is called La Plantation.
Beyala’s novel Comment cuisiner son mari à l'africaine appeared in the year 2000, published by Albin Michel. It is similar in structure to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, where the narrative is interrupted by the recipes which figure in the plot line. In her book, Beyala includes twenty-four of the recipes which her heroine Aïssatou prepares to attract her neighbor and compatriot, Souleymane Bolobolo. In this way the book serves as a how-to manual, as its title suggests, on how to seduce, marry and keep a husband by cooking for him.
The book begins with a prologue in the form of a legend where a woman arrives at the remote home of the recluse, Biloa. She announces that she has dreamed of him since she was a little girl, and that she has always known that they would marry. Biloa protests that he isn't the one she is seeking, repeating "Ce n'est pas moi", but the woman tempts him with food so Biloa admits his identity, "C'est peut-être moi," and takes the woman and the basket of food into his house. This, according to the legend, is how Biloa came to be a member of the society of men. This prologue does, indeed, prefigure the struggles of Aïssatou, our novel's heroine, who is a une dame-pipi28 caught between her identity as a Parisian and as an African. Fed up with romantic disappointments, she has chosen her neighbor Bolobolo to be her husband, though she hasn't really even
De tous les arts, l'art culinaire est celui qui nourrit le mieux son homme. - Pierre Dac
Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She was very disturbed by the extreme poverty of her surroundings. She went to school in Douala, and she excelled in Mathematics. Calixthe Beyala traveled widely in Africa and Europe before settling in Paris, where she now lives with her daughter. Beyala has published prolifically, and her most recent novel, which came out earlier this year, is called La Plantation.
Beyala’s novel Comment cuisiner son mari à l'africaine appeared in the year 2000, published by Albin Michel. It is similar in structure to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, where the narrative is interrupted by the recipes which figure in the plot line. In her book, Beyala includes twenty-four of the recipes which her heroine Aïssatou prepares to attract her neighbor and compatriot, Souleymane Bolobolo. In this way the book serves as a how-to manual, as its title suggests, on how to seduce, marry and keep a husband by cooking for him.
The book begins with a prologue in the form of a legend where a woman arrives at the remote home of the recluse, Biloa. She announces that she has dreamed of him since she was a little girl, and that she has always known that they would marry. Biloa protests that he isn't the one she is seeking, repeating "Ce n'est pas moi", but the woman tempts him with food so Biloa admits his identity, "C'est peut-être moi," and takes the woman and the basket of food into his house. This, according to the legend, is how Biloa came to be a member of the society of men. This prologue does, indeed, prefigure the struggles of Aïssatou, our novel's heroine, who is a une dame-pipi28 caught between her identity as a Parisian and as an African. Fed up with romantic disappointments, she has chosen her neighbor Bolobolo to be her husband, though she hasn't really even