✺ Millet + Sorghum: The Tongue is a Technology | African Porridge & Decolonizing Taste
- Kiing Curry
- Mar 27
- 8 min read
✺ Millet + Sorghum: The Tongue is a Technology | African Porridge & Decolonizing Taste
I Eat Tings
A study of the tongue, memory, and diaspora through food.
Each dish is a portal.
I Eat Tings is a BespokeCurry series exploring African and diasporic foods through memory, embodiment, and the politics of taste.
Millet + Sorghum
The Tongue is a Technology
If my tongue is about the business of
Quaker oats,
I can be sure that my praxis will follow.
Colonial alignment is quiet like that.
Soft.
Routine.
Unquestioned.
A bowl in the morning.
Warm.
Familiar.
Empty.
Because the tongue is not neutral.
The tongue is:
• a sensor
• an archive
• a political site
• a decolonial tool
And if that is true—
then the tongue is also a technology.
And the mouth?
The mouth is the processor.
The site where everything is interpreted,
filtered,
accepted,
rejected.
So what happens
when the system itself has been programmed?
Over the last five years, my partner and I have begun to notice something unsettling.
Our bodies have stopped responding
to what the state calls healthy.
Oatmeal is the clearest example.
That bowl is supposed to ground you.
Sustain you.
Hold you.
But instead—
it lands flat.
Part of that is abstract.
But part of that is very real.
Colonial agriculture depends on sameness.
The same crops.
Overgrown.
Over-processed.
Scaled beyond recognition.
Flavor stripped.
Distinction erased.
Things do not taste the way they did
even fifteen years ago.
Because the soil is tired.
The processes are tired.
And that exhaustion translates directly
to the mouth
and the stomach.
Our guts have been culled
into boring bacteria.
Lacking places.
Lacking diversity.
The probiotic trend suits capitalism well—
but it also reveals something deeper:
there is a real lack
in our bodies.
So that bowl of oatmeal?
It does more than nourish.
It stabilizes you
inside colonial wild fire.
It keeps you steady
in a system that benefits
from your neutrality.
From your apathy.
//// GLITCH IN THE BREAKFAST PORRIDGE PROGRAM ////
Enter millet.
Enter sorghum.
A West African porridge
that refuses urgency.
That refuses sameness.
That refuses to be quick.
This is not instant.
This requires soaking overnight.
Which means time is already being restored
before the cooking even begins.
A huge part of embodiment—
of regulation—
is literally slowing down
the processes
we’ve been taught
to take for granted.
We don’t have a microwave anymore.
That was a choice.
To heat food on the stove
or in the oven
means I have to decide
when I am going to eat
before I am already past the point
of needing to eat
It interrupts
the push
the override
the reaching
after the body has already spoken
It keeps me
in conversation
with myself
And I knew—
we were in good waters.
Where domoda taught my tongue depth,
and plantain taught my tongue transformation,
this porridge taught my tongue
continuity.
Grain as memory.
Grain as grounding.
Grain as something that does not rush
to meet empire.
American oats have been rendered
basic.
Betty Crocker boo boo.
Quick.
Efficient.
Predictable.
Trash.
But millet and sorghum?
They do not arrive to perform.
They arrive to be worked with.
To be listened to.
To be built with.
The base recipe came from Eat with Afia
(mentioned for those who want a place to begin),
but of course—
I adjusted it for embodiment
like only BespokeCurry can.
Aside — Cooking Notes (BespokeCurry Adjustment)
The original directions read colonially—too fast, too high heat, not enough attention to process.
This porridge should be cooked on medium to medium-low heat and brought up slowly to a soft, sticky boil. That pacing allows the base to stay smooth and prevents clumping—whisk regularly and let it come together without forcing it.
If you’re using dates, know that they will dissolve fully into the dish over time. If you want them to hold their shape or texture, add them toward the end instead.
My current base:
1/2 cup of Millet and 1/2 a cup of Sorghum (left overnight or longer for fermentation)
2 cups filtered water (for blending)
2 cups almond milk
~2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
For spices like cardamom or star anise, go very light—just a few pinches (ground). These are strong and can easily take over the dish if you’re heavy-handed.
So far, we’ve experimented with:
dark cocoa powder
monk fruit
honey
Baobab Powder
Dried Fruits and Nuts
And I’m already thinking ahead to incorporating fresh summer fruit.
This is a flexible dish—it should evolve as your tongue does.
Baobab powder from my stash.
Dried fruits.
Nuts.
A drizzle of honey.
Spice layered into warmth.
And something happened.
My tongue went feral.
The atmosphere of my mouth
glitched into alignment.
And this is just the beginning.
The next batch will be fermented.
Not just soaked.
Not just softened.
Alive.
Which means what I am building now
is not just a new taste—
but a new relationship
between my tongue
and my gut.
Because fermentation does something different.
It doesn’t just feed the body.
It collaborates with it.
I already know this language.
I’ve been learning it through sourdough.
Feeding a starter. Watching it rise. Listening for when it’s ready.
I am not just making bread.
I am tending something alive.
And it is tending me back.
So when I look at this porridge—
millet sorghum water time
I know what’s coming next.
Fermentation is not new.
It is recognition.
My gut is about to develop a level of discernment supported fully by ancestors and spirit.
prebiotics who?
Every step of this porridge
required attention.
Required presence.
Required me
to build something new.
New memory
in my hands.
New language
in my mouth.
New capacity
in my stomach.
This is what it means
to unearth yourself
through food.
Millet and sorghum did not just feed me.
They disrupted the quiet agreement
I had made with colonial taste.
Because if my tongue is free,
my praxis can follow.
And maybe that is the real work.
Not just eating differently.
But allowing the tongue
to become something else entirely.
Something wild.
Something ancestral.
Something that refuses
to flatten itself
for convenience.
Millet.
Sorghum.
Holding me
in something older
than empire.
Wild
and free.
Tongue Check
Taste the air.
Taste the plate.
Taste what remains.
What is sweet.
What is bitter.
What is missing.
The tongue always knows.
Aside — Fermentation Field Notes
This is my newest lab study into the food I eat and how it is processed, communicated through my belly, and expressed back out through creative process, regulation, and whatever follows.
This journey started in 2022 when I got sober with my first starter, which will always be named baobab gilead. Baobab because this isn’t just a tree—it is alchemy, from the water it holds to the way it becomes a living structure for many beings, including us. And gilead because there is a balm, and it has nothing to do with invisible men in the sky and everything to do with me.
Sourdough taught me first that fermentation is about time, space, and pace. It is layered and never the same. Temperature, humidity, and location all shift the outcome, which means there are too many variables to pretend control. I’ve made failed loaves that brought me back to the starter, because I’m not interested in outcome alone—I want to understand process.
That’s what led me to begin rotating fermented millet and sorghum porridge into my practice. It gives me another yeast landscape to observe and another language to listen to.
At this point, I’ve gone through multiple rounds. We’re on our fourth batch of porridge, and I can confidently say the oatmeal programming is gone. The first round fermented for three days in cooler conditions and produced a lighter result. The second, at four days in warmer conditions, was far more active—yeasty, slightly yogurty in smell, visibly alive. The grains moved in the bowl, rising and falling in circulation. A system in motion without my intervention.
I haven’t reached a true sour profile yet, which tells me there is more to learn—possibly the grain, the timing, or the need to extend fermentation further. And this is where the lesson deepens. The flexibility I extend to yeast is something I am learning to extend to myself.
Because sometimes yeast simply wants to be left alone. It’s not ready. It’s in a mood. And no amount of feeding or adjusting will force it into readiness.
That lands.
Because I’ve spent a lifetime being asked to be ready when I wasn’t, to perform when I couldn’t, to respond when I needed space.
So yes, fermentation in this household is intentional. Because the gut is the mind, and regulation begins there.
Fermentation and dietary fiber work together, and millet and sorghum support both. In a neurodivergent body—especially one navigating slower gut motility, possible IBS, and a history of ignored signals—the stomach is not optional. It is central, and it requires attention.
What I am learning is that fermentation is not about control. It is about relationship—relationship with time, with bacteria, with breath, with the unseen, and with a body that has always been speaking.
The gut is not just digestion. It is discernment. What stays, what moves, what transforms.
And I am no longer trying to rush what is still becoming.
Some things need warmth, time, and space to sit undisturbed until they rise on their own. I am learning to do the same.
✺ Millet + Sorghum: The Tongue is a Technology | African Porridge & Decolonizing Taste
Fermentation: A Dead Gut Cannot Discern
Next in the series. Soon Come.
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