Well, now that I’ve left Nigeria, sitting in the waiting room of the Lagos airport, I’ll comment on the food I have eaten. I need to start by saying that I’m a big fan of eating local food, wherever I am. If I want to eat Canadian food (whatever that is) at every meal, I figure I ought to stay in Canada. So, ‘when in Nigeria, eat as the Nigerians eat’.
My very first meal was not promising. I’d just arrived in Lagos and went to a guesthouse with a restaurant so I wouldn’t have to go out into the reputedly dangerous Lagos night to eat supper.
I was pleased to see that the menu contained traditional Nigerian fare – ‘ebo’ with sauces. Ebo is the Nigerian version of an almost universal sub-Saharan African basic food. It is made of one of a variety of pounded grain or root (maize, yam, cassava/manioc, millet, wheat, …) boiled in water until it has the consistency of grainy playdough, rolled into fist sized balls and placed on a plate with some ‘sauce’.
In Nigeria they call this ‘food and soup’, which reflects the perspective, wherever this is the staple food, that the starch is the ‘food’ and the rest of it – the sauce – is just something additional but not essential, similar, perhaps, to how a ‘meat and potatoes’ person in Canada might the vegetables on tbe plate.
I ordered the ‘Ebo with Goat and Vegetables’. The waitress questioned my selection with a disbelieving laugh, but I persisted, and in a few minutes I was ‘enjoying’ my Ebo with Goat and Vegetables.
Unfortunately they decided to honour me with the best cut of goat meat that they had – a shoulder with some meat on it, but mostly fat, and including the skin. I had to insult their generosity by returning the ‘best part’, having eaten only the bit of meat and vegetables that was included in the dish.
Pictured above is the last meal I had in Nigeria, at the Lagos airport. Here, you’ll notice, I chose a more Canadian fare – a passable omelet, grilled tomato, ‘baked beans’ (straight from the pork and beans can), ‘sausage’ (simple wieners), some bread and butter, and an excellent cappuccino. If I were Nigerian, I’m afraid that meal would have put me off Canadian food, so I guess we’re even.
I did, in the days in between, have some very good Nigerian food, which is featured in a short video of a 'Nigerian Food Flask', at the bottom of the blog - a technology that I would love to see in Canada. This meal restored my faith in Nigerian food – which started, oddly enough, in Nairobi, Kenya in 1991.
I was in the Mennonite Guesthouse there for about two weeks, eating American style food, prepared from sub-standard groceries by British-trained Kenyans. Needless to say, the resulting fare did none of those epicurean traditions proud. As it was, a Nigerian trio also staying there took pity on me and made me a home-cooked Nigerian meal. It Was Wonderful, and perhaps that early success is what has kept me coming back over and over again to the ‘local food table’ when traveling – a pattern I have no intention of changing, regardless of the occasional disappointment.
My very first meal was not promising. I’d just arrived in Lagos and went to a guesthouse with a restaurant so I wouldn’t have to go out into the reputedly dangerous Lagos night to eat supper.
I was pleased to see that the menu contained traditional Nigerian fare – ‘ebo’ with sauces. Ebo is the Nigerian version of an almost universal sub-Saharan African basic food. It is made of one of a variety of pounded grain or root (maize, yam, cassava/manioc, millet, wheat, …) boiled in water until it has the consistency of grainy playdough, rolled into fist sized balls and placed on a plate with some ‘sauce’.
In Nigeria they call this ‘food and soup’, which reflects the perspective, wherever this is the staple food, that the starch is the ‘food’ and the rest of it – the sauce – is just something additional but not essential, similar, perhaps, to how a ‘meat and potatoes’ person in Canada might the vegetables on tbe plate.
I ordered the ‘Ebo with Goat and Vegetables’. The waitress questioned my selection with a disbelieving laugh, but I persisted, and in a few minutes I was ‘enjoying’ my Ebo with Goat and Vegetables.
Unfortunately they decided to honour me with the best cut of goat meat that they had – a shoulder with some meat on it, but mostly fat, and including the skin. I had to insult their generosity by returning the ‘best part’, having eaten only the bit of meat and vegetables that was included in the dish.
Pictured above is the last meal I had in Nigeria, at the Lagos airport. Here, you’ll notice, I chose a more Canadian fare – a passable omelet, grilled tomato, ‘baked beans’ (straight from the pork and beans can), ‘sausage’ (simple wieners), some bread and butter, and an excellent cappuccino. If I were Nigerian, I’m afraid that meal would have put me off Canadian food, so I guess we’re even.
I did, in the days in between, have some very good Nigerian food, which is featured in a short video of a 'Nigerian Food Flask', at the bottom of the blog - a technology that I would love to see in Canada. This meal restored my faith in Nigerian food – which started, oddly enough, in Nairobi, Kenya in 1991.
I was in the Mennonite Guesthouse there for about two weeks, eating American style food, prepared from sub-standard groceries by British-trained Kenyans. Needless to say, the resulting fare did none of those epicurean traditions proud. As it was, a Nigerian trio also staying there took pity on me and made me a home-cooked Nigerian meal. It Was Wonderful, and perhaps that early success is what has kept me coming back over and over again to the ‘local food table’ when traveling – a pattern I have no intention of changing, regardless of the occasional disappointment.
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