Guns, Checkpoints and Pesto: Sense of Hearing

In my experience of conflict and post-conflict contexts, sounds and noises are probably what cause most of the fear and anguish. While most of us aid workers and UN officials remain protected from the line of fire of the actual conflict, we spend days and nights close enough to the fighting to hear the gun fire, the RPGs and the ambulances rushing back and forth with the dead or wounded. Our sense of hearing therefore dominating all other senses. In a culinary context, hearing can also influence the other senses and is also subject to cultural differences...

The Sense of Hearing

While Indians wait to hear poppy seeds crackle in the hot oil before adding the rest of the ingredients to curry sauces, the Lebanese listen to the bubbling sound of the water at the bottom of a shisha pipe, as they eat hummus and other mezze. Palestinians enjoy the sound of Turkish coffee being poured into tiny handleless cups while Ugandan children listen to their mothers sing as they pound dried maize into flour, for hours, always at the same rhythm, and always smiling. And while the Congolese dip their fufu into crushed chilli sauce (made from very hot African chillies), you can almost hear their hearts beat from the fire of the spice...

A shisha pipe repairman in Shatila refugee camp, south of Beirut, Lebanon in 2008

Coffee merchant grinding cardamon pods and Costa Rican coffee beans in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine in 2007. The coffee is boiled in metal pots over the fire, constantly turning it to the right consistency, augmented by lots of sugar and poured into small cups, also known as Turkish coffee.

A Ugandan mother digs her field with her children, in Mbale, Eastern Uganda in 2003.

The red roundish ones are the chillies found in the DR Congo... Some of the hottest chillies in the World. The Congolese crush it with garlic and salt and use it as a condiment for fufu or chicken.