Issue 31: Nothing To See Here But Food
Food is often cultural, but it also can be a very private event -- beyond its nutritional value to our bodies. This is a letter with a question on how much food defines us.
Hello, friend. How are you?
I have a content plan I stick to on most days. Days when the theme for the letter doesn't work out, I have to write something else. Today is one of such days. An interesting anecdote from my life suddenly seemed too personal and dull, so I asked my friends for suggestions, and Dunni suggested food, to which I responded, why not? I was going to write personal anecdotes from my life, so you might as well read random food stories from my life.
I've always found food in literature and popular culture exquisite. I started out reading foreign books where the meals were English, French or Italian. Enid Blyton wrote of hard-boiled eggs, eclairs, and pickled onions with a sense of wonder that made me crave things I'd never tasted. When my sisters and I played house, we reproduced these with props: ironed handkerchiefs were french toast, lawn tennis balls were hard-boiled eggs, and pebbles were licorice candy.
When I watched Ed, Edd, n Eddy, I could think only of jawbreakers. Old Nollywood films, especially those with Igbo storylines, made my stomach turn as I licked my fingers. I longed for akpu as I watched actors sitting on raffia mats dip well-pressed balls of swallow into soup in a shared soup bowl in front of them. Reading magazines, my sister and I would grab imaginary meals, stuff them into our mouths and rub our bellies. Food beyond our reach was exciting, unlike food within our reach.
On the phone with my sisters a few days ago, we had a conversation about the food we grew up eating. It started after one sister mentioned how my brother, who was in the background, had been craving beans for a while. Growing up, there was a timetable for dinner: beans on Monday, white rice on Tuesday, beans again on Wednesday, yam, and eggs on Thursday as we watched Super Story. We couldn't seem to remember what we ate on Fridays, but it was beans again on Saturday.
Back then, I was not fond of beans and all its variations — mixed with palm oil, white, aganyin, frejon, akara. The adults would attempt to persuade me by saying I would grow tall only if I ate beans. Jokes on them. For lunch on most days, my maternal grandmother turned eba and ewedu — which my sister and I would rather have than amala (we thought amala would make us dark-skinned). I realised a long time ago how colourist this idea was but haven’t unpacked where it came from—story for another letter.
Discussing this list with my sisters made me realise how much of my childhood is defined by forcefully shoving eba into my mouth or tearing pieces of bread to place on top of a spoon of beans (If I had to eat beans, it had to be with bread). The torture of those nights sitting in front of a kerosene lamp or of hot afternoons staring irritatedly at eba remains vividly in memory. Time passes, leaving us with these memories of choices we can no longer make sense of: Why did I think amala would make me black? What was so wrong with being black? And why didn't I like beans? (maybe because it looks a lil bit like shit?) It doesn't make sense; beans is delicious. And eba, what was my grandmother's deal with it? Why did we have to eat it every afternoon after school?
I enjoy beans now — all its variations, even the ewa aganyin hawked with agege bread on Lagos roads— especially making it myself and exploring recipes I discover online. I don't remember how or when that change happened. Some Twitter friends introduced me to a coconut milk recipe a year ago: soaking the beans first to soften it, then adding coconut milk before mixing it with crayfish, palm oil, and then plantain. It comes out silky and sweet, but It's still challenging to eat beans without bread. That's a separate story of bread — preferably the hot, bakery kind — as a coping mechanism or slight addiction.
I haven't eaten eba consistently in years. I can't remember the last time I ate it. Neither have I drank garri, although I have a small bag I bought from the African shop a few weeks ago. Sometimes I wonder if this lack of interest in eba is from eating eba too much as a child or the idea that it makes your belly hard or that it steals your eyesight (I was warned when I went for my first glasses test at 12).
As an adult, my food choices are private events. In law school, weighing over 100kg, I went on a low-carb diet (the keto fad) that most people found fascinating (how can you not eat rice? What do you eat?). This made me a bit insecure — the idea of not eating as you'd like because you need to ‘come down’. It's perhaps why I enjoy eating in the privacy of my room and now, thanks to a bad habit I picked from Tobi, compulsorily in front of a movie or television show. I still don't eat rice and rarely eat yam or swallow. At the start of the week, I create a timetable, choosing to explore new recipes I find on Tiktok or Instagram stories while still staying within my comfort zone.
On the other hand, food presents itself as a way to connect with friends. At potlucks, birthdays, going away dinners, new year parties, we arrange food of all kinds on tables, cook together and entertain ourselves with food. Last week when I couldn't write to you, I was over with friends from Singapore, Nigeria, and India. We ate chicken, spring rolls, and samosas, and in a small way, I felt like I was home.
There's the running joke about Nigerians who leave home for a vacation or to start new lives in a foreign country. How they go in search of Nigerian food instead of exploring the unique cuisines of the culture they're in. Could this be valid in that food that we are accustomed to grounds and stabilizes us, gives us a sense of home, hope, self?
I once spent a week in East Africa and had almost no access to peppery food. When I returned home on a Monday afternoon, I went straight to devour beans and peppery stew. The stew choked me and made my eyes water, but it was a small price to pay to feel like myself again.
So yes, nothing to see here other than a few musings (read: pointless rant) about food. Perhaps, the beginning of an essay.
Things I found interesting this week:
Till next week! As always, it would make me happy if you shared this letter/forwarded it to your friends. Have a great weekend!
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i relate so much , i was so curious about those jawbreakers, and i am always so fascinated by literature about food, i really want to read “Longthroat Memoirs”. also i’m east african with a voracious love for pepper, i was indoctrinated by my west african friends, but i recently went to kenya and uganda and lord, what we call chilli barely tickles my tongue, tastes like salt
If I was ever asked to write about food, this is just the way it will pop out from my head. I also didn't like beans as a child but my brother and I would mix it with garri, mould it and pretend we were eating cake. Surprisingly, beans is one of my favorite meals to eat now.
This was beautiful to read, thank you