It takes three ingredients to make a garba: fried tuna, attiéké and chilli. The ball of attiéké, made from cassava semolina, is served crumbled, “wet” with a ladle of frying oil, then garnished with a piece of tuna and chopped peppers. The seller can add condiments on request: tomatoes and onions cut into small cubes, garlic, a cube of preparation for Maggi broth to crumble on the dish, mayonnaise… We eat the garba by hand, and rather at the end of the morning, because it is the fuel of workers and students. Necessarily invigorating – we don’t just say “un garba”, but rather “un bon garba”, with the emphasis on the adjective -, it must hold on to the body until nightfall.
Garba has its origins in the working-class neighborhoods of Abidjan, Treichville, Abobo and Adjamé, but the small restaurants that serve it, the “garbadromes”, have spread in recent years throughout the metropolis and beyond. Two legends oppose each other about its origins. The first says that the dish was named in honor of Dicoh Garba, Minister of Animal Production under Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who undertook to promote tuna fishing in the 1970s. The other maintains that he is a Nigerian immigrant , called Garba, who first had the idea of ??combining low-end attiéké with pieces of tuna neglected by fishmongers. One thing is certain, it was the Nigerien community of Abidjan who popularized this dish in the 1980s, a stroke of genius all the more striking as there is neither sea nor cassava cultivation in Niger.
Nightmare of nutritionists
Garbadromes were initially concentrated around university residences, where they served student populations with low purchasing power, before extending their clientele to workers. We then saw young Ivorians open garbadromes stamped “choco”, or “class”, with the promise of stricter hygiene standards. Because the dish has an ambivalent image. Ivorians love it for its simplicity and its taste, the crispy fried fish combined with the softness of the attiéké, the fat of the palm oil and the salt of the Maggi cube – it must be admitted, the garba is the nutritionist’s nightmare. But they also know that it is prepared in unhygienic conditions, with fish handled with bare hands, utensils that are not always very clean and frying oil reused until it turns black.
“With the salary of a laborer or an undeclared worker, you cannot put more than 500 francs [CFA, or 0.76 euros] in a meal, nor eat two or three meals a day, notes Junior Sapim , teacher of nouchi, the slang of the popular districts of Abidjan. If we go to the garba, it is to eat what satisfies us, without worrying about our health. Consuming on the spot is the prerogative of the working classes, while the “chocos”, members of the middle and upper classes, will prefer to take their garba to take away to eat at home or at the maquis. “The whole Ivorian population eats garba, even in the interior of the country,” says Junior Sapim. Garba is part of our cultural identity. But no Ivorian prepares garba at home: “Homemade tuna attiéké, says a popular saying, it’s not garba.” »
“The popular dish embodied by the garba is an innovation of the people ‘down below'”, write anthropologist Francis Akindès and his co-authors in Manger en ville (ed. Quæ, 2020). Originally considered the meal of the poor, “it has become so integrated into eating habits that, even when climbing the social category scale, its enthusiasts […] have maintained it in their diet. Eating the garba is an act in remembrance of his “galley” trajectory”. With more or less good faith: the Prime Minister, Patrick Achi, and the Minister for Solidarity and the Fight Against Poverty, Belmonde Dogo, were thus accused of populism when they had their photograph taken last year , eating a garba in Yamoussoukro.
After a club night
The dish quickly made its appearance in popular culture, first in zouglou music, then in Abidjan rap, whose pioneers Sooh and Oli aptly chose the name “Garba 50” for their duet in the early 2000s. More recently, Ivorian-born French rapper Le Juiice compared the dish to her music, in Trap Mama: “Always in the kitchen, it cooks fucking flows or a good garba.” »
The garba has managed to maintain its popularity despite the passage of time… but not escape Abidjan’s gentrification. Young night owls do not disdain to treat themselves to one in the early hours of the morning after an evening in a club, attiéké proving to be rather effective in absorbing alcohol. We have even seen signs appear offering delivery for “chocos”, such as I-garba. And the wealthiest can afford a plate of it for 8,000 CFA francs (about 12 euros) at the restaurant of the Ivoire hotel, served with fork, knife and view of the palace swimming pool.
