One of the things I love the most about scent leaves is the fragrance and aroma when bruised – fresh, clean and citrusy. I’m from Edo state where Egusi is king. I’ve heard that there’s a soup, black soup is its name but I’ve never had it babe. One week day I came home from...
Lunchtime Capers is a series chronicling my hour-long lunch break and the places I venture to – a store, markets, a roadside restaurant. Home. —–00000—– This lunchtime caper is from months ago, when my friend, Osemhen and I visited a market close to our office. She wanted to learn to make a soup I had heard...
I grew up eating yam and pepper soup, or plantain and pepper soup. That was and is one of my mom’s favourite meals ever. Well, that and my peanut butter chicken sauce with Chinese fried rice or noodles. Then in 2001, I went to Youth Service camp in Bayelsa. One afternoon, my friend took me...
The first time I fainted, I was thirteen and I passed out halfway between the kitchen and living room of 4 Ihuo Street, Port Harcourt. It was a Sunday and Daddy had just come back from Igarra. The second time I fainted, I was thirty-seven and at a dental surgery in Port Harcourt. Back to...
‘Mehn, soup get level’…and this is up there with the best. A pot, choc-full of the freshest seafood – crabs, lobster and fish. I like to cook it in a shallow pan so the fish doesn’t ‘scatter’ :). I start off with making a quick stock – a combination of fried lobster shells in palm oil...
Egusi soup, in which I channel my inner ‘Edo‘ girl. My ‘Igarra‘ heritage. For this is the soup by which we are woken up on many a morning, ladled into yellow enamel bowls, motiffed with green leaves and rimmed in red. Covers clanging, hiding the pungent, fried scents of une, what we call locust beans and...
A night-time conversation with D, my 6-year old has brought me here, to this point where I am writing an open letter to the world. To those who think Nigerian cuisine is no more than pepper. And I am not really on the offensive. Or defensive. I’m just in plain agreement as to how we...
Tales by Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa With the spliced rhythm of tribal Africa, with the pulse, and raw hide cloak of riddles, with the drizzling monsoon on lemon grass, with the serene river songs of the canaries, with the dim light of the oil lamps, I reflect on the times when under the tropical moon fierce...
The Hague, July 2011 Imagine this: Its Monday morning in the official headquarters and I’m in the ‘war room’, surrounded by uber-tech computer screens, sitting around a large wood-panelled table. My entire body finds solace in a soft, black leather swivel chair and I sink in, armed for another work week. Chit and chatter fill...