Honey

This picture, taken along the old coast road between Tanga and Bagamoyo in Tanzania, make it look as if the local inhabitants hang coffins from the branches of acacia trees, a sort of African equivalent of a sky burial. They're not coffins, but....

....hives for bees which, being African and very bad tempered, produce the world's best honey.

This is my personal honey pot, from the pottery in Rye, Sussex, and every day I have a spoonful of the African honey it holds. Honey is one of the most natural of foods, something which our ancient ancestors who roamed the plains of Africa would have enjoyed long before they set off to colonise the world. It's in the same category as meat, fish, roots, berries and nuts, staples which we hunted and collected long before we settled down and started farming grains.

I'm very fortunate that a local wholesaler sells these 3.18Kg pots of African honey, though the same honey can be bought in glass jars from places like the Co-op. It usually comes from Zambia, though the Ethiopian version is every bit as good.

The man who imports and packages the honey is bee keeper David Wainwright, who runs Tropical Forest Products. The villagers who farm and collect the honey often do so in very difficult circumstances as African honey, as well as being protected by the world's most aggressive bees, is also popular with honey badgers and safari ants. What David has given them is a small industry which encourages young people to stay on their traditional farms rather than travel to the city in the often vain hope of work.