Sometime in October, Kitchenbutterfly alongside Angels and Muse hosted a literary dining experience, #wordchop inspired by Chinua Achebe’s trilogy: Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. She created some local dishes inspired by the legacy of family and colonisation which the books highlighted. I know you are mind blown, I was too. The tasting was called No Leftovers, and to make things even better, we all got extra food to take home. Ha-ha, yes :)

“I've always wanted to 'carbon date' various foods and culinary events in Nigeria and books like this allow me understand what – when – how. They also inspire me to explore mentioned combinations I might not have otherwise thought of.”

- Ozoz

Plot Summary

Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” is about Okonkwo, whose reign as the leader in his community is halted due to the end of colonisation. “No Longer at Ease” set several decades after, also dwells on the same theme, as it features clashes between western and indigenous culture. Obi struggles to balance his monetary commitments for family and community, because of his materialistic obsession influenced by western culture. It is in the “Arrow of God”, that the conflict between these two come to an end, as Christianity overthrows Ezeulu’s Traditional reign.

Imagine reading a book and falling in love with a plate of something delicious that took you on a journey to nostalgia and love and wonder, and even some of the more difficult emotions… that is Ozoz’ inspiration.

The Wordchop

At the start of the dinner, we were welcomed with a plate of fresh afang and uziza leaves, dry fish, kpomo, garden eggs and some ogbono and palm-infused butter. We also used our hands to make mini tacos by wrapping all these obstructions with fresh leaves, and then putting everything in at one-go. All the flavours exploded in my mouth – the bitter garden eggs and kola nut, umami from the dry fish and ogbono/palm butter, as well as the peppery uziza and crispy afang. It reminded me of the Igbo African salad that I grew up eating in Port Harcourt, and the Afang soup that my mum would make with periwinkles as large as my fingers which always had this nice bittersweet aftertaste. How do you classify something as memorable when you’ve never had anything like it before?

This was a bonus round as it was given to us to prepare our palate for everything to come, so it didn’t really have a story. Although I like to think of the kola nut as a symbol of hospitality and celebration.

So for our actual starter, we had plantain, two ways: chips with dry fish butter, crispy ugba, uziza and scent leaf salad, as well as plantain salad with vegetable, palm oil and palm wine vinaigrette, served with ugba, dry fish floss and crispy dry fish skin. It was called Bittersweet, and according to Things Fall Apart was prepared by Okonkwo’s second wife Ekwefi after Ikemefuna’s death. On page 50 of the book; the third day of grief, he asked Ekwefi to roast plantains for him as she served it with slices of oil bean and fish.

The starter explored plantain in a well-known way, in the form of chips, alongside an unfamiliar vegetable salad, all accompanied with a palm wine vinaigrette. The plantain chips were paired with crispy ugba and dry fish butter – which was Nkwobi-inspired but without the potash. The butter made with oil and water gave a similar consistency and base, and the most amazing thing on this plate amongst everything else, was the crispy ugba [oil bean]. It had a smoky, slightly bitter and light texture that made the unripe plantain chips my favourite thing to pair it with. The Ijaw in me could go on and on about the dry fish floss and crispy dry fish skin but in another post, please.

Our main course called R.S.V.P., was derived from Okonkwo’s character in No Longer at Ease, and the celebratory meal served at the welcome back feast for Obi, his grandson. Okonkwo was considered a rich man as he was the first to build a 'zinc' house in his village. He had been a catechist of the Church Missionary Society for twenty-five years and then retired on a pension of twenty-five pounds a year. He had a habit of hosting feasts and was fond of retelling this story: that the real reason wedding feasts were scarce in cities was because of new invitation cards that came with the clause R.S.V.P. --- Rice and Stew Very Plenty.

Ozoz’ feast was with Abakaliki rice/red rice and scent leaf with three sauces: nkwobi of cowleg, ayamashe shaki, peppered snails with ugba dodo and garden egg chutney. She hinted it was a bottomless pit of delight, and I agree. It was a generous bowl of all the unique dishes we have across the country – nkwobi belonging to the Igbos, ayamashe from the Yorubas, and peppered snails of the Niger Delta.

I really liked that it had some of my favourite proteins in their individual sauces, come together as one. I’m sure you can imagine how this tasted, and if you like to find meanings in everything, maybe consider this a symbol of beauty in unity.

According to Ozoz, the new age of indigenous cuisine is a return to heritage and pride informed by our history and anthropology. It's a revolution that's happening in so many spaces and spheres where cultural identity is central. Like hair and body care.

I like to think that being Nigerian in the 21st century is learning to accept the fusion of what it means to be contemporary and indigenous at the same time, which involves owning parts of oneself that is neither this nor that, and celebrating it out there in the world.

“I like how non-Nigerians too could get a glimpse of who we are, as Nigerians on the plate, what we adore, our food sayings and proverbs. Authenticity is a function of where we are in time. We evolve and with that, definitions of what our food is, change. If I'm honest, I'd rather make distinctions between traditional versus contemporary approaches and ignore authenticity altogether.” 

While all the reading was going on, there was this amazing drink that was being shared around. It was a gin cocktail that had hints of cardamom, citrus, pepper fruit and everything nice. Gosh, I probably had over 5 shots, it was so delish and followed the bittersweet theme present in all the dishes.

The dessert – yam cake with chocolate crumb and mousse, vanilla ice cream, and honey caramel was inspired by an excerpt from p3 of Arrow of God, “Ezeulu, went into his barn and took down one yam from the bamboo platform built specially for the 12 sacred yam. There were 8 left.” The book explores yam, the new year festival, land allocations, as well as the Christian harvest.

I imagine it as some form of thanksgiving to the universe for abundance, in a world that doesn’t seem to have enough. There is some form of sacred dependency on “yam”, among the Igbos, as the New Yam Festival represents the end of a harvest and the beginning of the next work cycle. Yam is symbolic because it’s the first crop that’s usually harvested, and considered highly significant in their socio-cultural life. In an agrarian society, it also makes sense to consider it a symbol of wealth and status.

I liked the presentation and that the Nigerian-made chocolate looked like some form of ground soil (imagine coco pops) with vanilla ice-cream over it. On the other side, the honey caramel looked like sunny side up eggs, and next to the yam cake – it gave this impression of the good old Nigerian yam and egg.

Why is this Necessary?

No Leftovers might simply mean that in reimagining newer ways to indulge Nigerian food, we have to accept we never lost anything to western influence. Nigerians have an overprotective relationship with food that is probably linked to everything we’ve ever lost in the past – from culture to identity, and even language.

“This up close personal relationship with Nigerian food makes it feel as though its unnecessary to laud Nigerian cuisine, to make the work of speaking, writing and promoting it unnecessary, that what most people ought to do is just understand that it's awesome and fall in line. However, it's exactly for these reasons that we need to shout it off the rooftops, that this food is bae, and why it is and everything in between.”

- Ozoz Sokoh

Despite the fact that I have never thought to combine our local ingredients like this, the most exciting part about this experience was that in as much as it was different, it was still very familiar. And like most Nigerians, one thing that pulls Ozoz to Achebe is how he describes certain pivotal moments with simple things like food, in a way that forms its own language – one separate from text but still in its own way extremely valid.