I love stewed beans. Or Jollof beans as we would call it in Nigeria. Beans cooked in a tomato sauce. Except my sauce is more onions and peppers than tomatoes. But it still ends up with the Jollof ‘hue’, a cross between deep orange and red. Jollof. Today, I share my beloved recipe for ‘stewed’ beans: Brown...
Connectedness. The thing that fascinates me the most in life. If I had to narrow down the things I find fascinating. This would be one of them. Connectedness – of people, places and things. Brazil. Nigeria. Connected. By slavery and freedom. In culture and cuisine. Like Carnivals. Connected, with thick tropical rainforests and love for football. Connected in...
Salsa, of a rhythmic Latin American dance. And of a sauce. A condiment with names, types, characters varied. From Roja, of red to verde, of green. With sweetcorn, onions, carrots, pineapples and mangoes – each starring as the main ingredient. Even with citrus too. This salsa I present to you is of mangoes.
I didn’t grow up cutting up mangoes into pretty chunks for food. I didn’t worry about how to get my chunks all lined up in a row. I didn’t find my days and night taken with thoughts of salsas and salads Limed-fruit and whatnots. It wasn’t till adulthood beckoned… That I learnt how to cut...
It’s the transformation that gets me. The beautiful change of colour in the purple onions to almost magenta. It’s the acid in the fresh limes that result in this. That creates this thing of beauty. The bite of the onion is tempered, and the texture is slightly softened. The acid in the lime juice sets...
I post this, long overdue……from Sunderland, in the northeast of England where I’m putting my feet up, enjoying single-digit temperatures and reveling in the stunning views of the North sea. —–00000—– To say I brought back evidence of my trip to Songhai Farms would be right. Evidence in photos, and in food. I brought back...
She was beautiful. Silver-haired, petite and with the finest English accent to boot. We sat next to each other on two silver benches, side by side, watching other beautiful people and the world inside the George bush airport, Houston go by.
For when you can’t eat. Two pains I cannot fathom or explain – heartbreak and toothache. Are they really necessary for life, growth, healing? I wonder. I had an impacted wisdom tooth extracted last Monday. It’s not something I’d like to repeat. Or wish on my worst enemy. Now I understand what my friend Joy...
Travel by Plate is a series exploring food, culture and travel, from Nigeria to South America and beyond. Please welcome my friend, the wonderful Adetoun of Finding Uhuru who wrote this post. A few weeks ago, I cried out on Twitter, desperately seeking someone, anyone who’d been to Saminaka in my yaji-craze, someone who had experienced the piping hot...