Eating in Ferlo (Senegal)
The villages where the author collected the facts about food discussed here are located in the sylvo-pastoral and semi-arid area in northern Senegal (Ferlo). From 1970, several projects for development and against desertification have been conducted. The Fulani make up most of the population but some families are also Wolof or Moorish. Based on an intensive ethnographic survey, the author clarifies the tensions raised by the introduction of industrial foodstuffs from Dakar or elsewhere into this Ferlo once used to self-sufficiency (millet, milk, Wild food plants). The author insists on the symbolic value that surrounds these products but also in their ambivalences. Thus, the rice and the bouillon cube coming from the outside are both carriers of health risks given their excessive intake of sugar and salt. He questions the new forms of food dependence that this situation induces.