The Times Cook in Nigeria

My diary for one day in July 1966 describes the naming ceremony for baby Oluwoyo, the infant son of my neighbour Janet who taught with me in Ondo, Nigeria. Resonant Yoruba names, Bolanle Olubusola Abieke, were conferred upon the child, as he was presented with symbolic gifts of kola nuts, fish, salt, palm oil, meat and pepper. This was followed by a lunch of akara, ebe, egusi soup, moyin-moyin, Jolloff rice, goat, liver and chicken.

That, I’m afraid, is the sole mention of food in my diary for that year. It was certainly the gastronomic high point of my year in Nigeria. The rest of the time I lived on yam, beans, plantains and groundnuts, with the occasional pepper, chicken and rice when I was in funds. I was glad of the peppers, for it would have taken me a long time to adapt to eating cassava, yams, tannia, taro and all the other starchy roots that are not potatoes. Peppers are not native to West Africa, but were brought from South and Central America by European explorers and traders, particularly the Portuguese, who probably also introduced the cassava from Brazil. The Brazilian link still exists in Lagos, where one of the local dishes is imoyo elaja, fish marinated with lime juice, red peppers, garlic and onion, not unlike an escabeche. Frejon is another such dish, called rejoada in Yoruba, and consists of a stew of cowpeas (black-eyed beans), various meats and coconut milk, very like the present-day feijoada of Brazil and Portugal. Further to the west, in Benin, cosido, based on the Portuguese cocido, is considered a local dish now.