Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

52
THINKING BLACK
cooking all the meals with the alacrity of a girl in her teens.
Beaming with simple truth, the more this old lady talks
the more the scales of prejudice fall from your eyes, and
you begin to see her striking resemblance to some English
lady you have known.
In Lubaland I met another such dear granny whose
intention was better than her attainment. A beaming
lady, seventy at a guess, she claims to be the champion
cook of the country ; tells you, moreover, that she is the
Chiefs cook. Proof positive this, that being Chiefs cook
she is chief cook also. Has cooked in her day all manner
of messes : fat snakes, soft snails, and many another menu
item that would look more polite in French than in
English. Boiled dogs, she tells me, are her speciality, and
according to this authority the Lubans pet their famous
dogs for the greedy reason that the very dog that was so
friendly before he entered the cooking-pot might still
agree with them—in digestion. Well, this kindly dame
it was who came poking around my pots and pans, em-
boldened by her " Koyal Letters Patent" to believe that
she, poor soul, could even cook a dainty dish for " he of
the boots." Finally, my boy gave me hopelessly away,
by hinting that I ate eggs, a very debased sort of diet
to a Luban, for in that egg is not the chick yet unborn ?
(And if we must eat eggs then, ex hypo., why not wait
until they are just old enough to hint that there is a
semblance to a chick inside ?) My boy, however, coming
to the point with praiseworthy directness in two terse,
patronising words coudescended to tell this Chief-because-