Elephant Soup

In African villages, a successful hunt means a share of fresh meat for everyone. After traveling in equatorial Africa one observer wrote, "...the gorge they all go in for after a successful elephant hunt is a thing to see—once". (Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, 1897.) There can still be more meat than can be immediately consumed, especially when there are no refrigerators or freezers, so a tradition of preserving meat by drying or smoking has developed throughout Africa. Dried meat, c