Cin Cin to the Chin Chin! This month I’m inviting readers to raise a glass to this popular West African biscuit. You can buy Chin Chin by the tub here in Peckham but I was lucky enough to sample some homemade ones gifted to guests at a friend’s church. These are a Nigerian recipe and these Chin Chin taste like small crunchy deep fried doughnuts. You can also find them in Ghana (which has its own savoury version), Togo, Benin, and Cameroon. Here’s a close-up of some imported from a local African store:

…and a close-up of the homemade ones, well suited for eating by the handful as a party snack:

And some other, slightly more rounded, Chin Chin that Immanuel from my church brought me on learning I was a fan. These have travelled all the way from Cameroon!

As the Bestiary’s first African biscuit, the Chin Chin prompted me to do some research on the history of Africa in the medieval period which some readers may not know is home to one of the world’s oldest churches. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church pre-dates the age of European colonisation and developed independently of Europe’s church after the Council of Chalcedon of 451, retaining closer links with Judaism. I knew very little about this fascinating branch of ecclesial history until I did some reading on it. My favourite discovery was Ethiopia’s Church Forests (proof that somewhere in the world the holy hermits in forests beloved of medieval chivalric fiction are alive and well). When Catholic travellers journeyed to Africa in the later medieval period, they did not – as they had hoped – find that great king of Christian legend, Prester John, but an ancient faith tradition with deep roots of its own.

West Africa in the Middle Ages was a constantly changing tapestry of kingdoms and empires that had become extremely prosperous culturally and economically, viz. Mali, Benin (now in modern Nigeria) and Ife. These mainly practised African traditional religion or Islam (as in the case of Mali’s most famous king Mansa Musa) and formed into city-states governed by monarchies or mercantile republics whose independent fortunes rose and fell, either through conquering or ceding power to one another or by being colonised by European powers in later centuries. The Portuguese explorers believed to be the first Europeans to see the city of Edo or Benin in the fifteenth century thought it one of the most impressive cities of the world in its day, built on a fractal design in the middle of the West African Forest, lit by palm-oil street lamps by night and protected by a wall four times longer than the Great Wall of China.

While the Chin Chin post-date these medieval kingdoms by a few hundred years Michael Lawanson, proprietor of Mikey’s Gourmet Chin Chin, explains how Nigeria’s beloved biscuit snack first originated with the Saro people: the descendants of freed slaves who began returning from Sierra Leone in the 1830s after Britain’s passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 and the British Navy’s attempts to enforce it. The Saro thrived in their new (old) home and added their own traditions into Yoruba culture, of which Chin Chin is one. Originally served as a symbol of sophistication at high society gatherings in Lagos,” Lawanson writes, chin-chin swiftly transcended its elitist origins, becoming an accessible delight for people across all social classes. Street vendors in Lagos capitalised on its popularity, frying up batches of this delectable snack to cater to locals, workers, and schoolchildren. And if you’re wondering how the name Chin Chin came about, it has nothing to do with the popular Italian toast but the crunching noise they make when you bite into them.

Being roughly a finger-tip in size, the Chin Chin are the smallest biscuits I’ve profiled on the Bestiary so far but also some of the tastiest – I can see why they’re so popular as a party food. For the moral, I wondered about Zechariah’s Who Hath Despised the Day of Small Things? Charles Haddon Spurgeon has a beautiful passage on this in one of his sermons:

“…it is usually God’s way to begin his great works with small things. We see it every day, for the first dawn of light is but feeble, and yet by-and-by it grows into the full noontide heat and glory. We know how the early spring comes with its buds of promise, but it takes some time before we get to the beauties of summer or the wealth of autumn. How tiny often is the seed that is sown in the garden, yet out of it there comes the lovely flower! How small is the acorn, but how great is the oak that grows up from it! The stream commences with but a gentle rivulet, but it flows on till it becomes a brook, and anon a river, — perhaps a mighty Amazon, ere its course is run.”

In the same way, this little tub of Chin Chin has led me on a journey of discovery I would never have anticipated when they first appeared on the kitchen table.

Further Delectation

More on the medieval city of Benin and the early history of Christianity in Africa.

More on the history of Chin Chin from Michael Lawanson (and there are numerous recipes for homemade Chin Chin on the internet if you fancy having a go at making them yourself).

If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar.