The times are too interesting to take certain liberties; for
instance, lazy unsophisticated Nigerian food lingua franca.
An oblong loose-skinned tomato with ribbing is a Hausa tomato. A
large green banana that never goes yellow at any stage is an Igbo banana. A small
scraggly banana with yellow and green blotches that looks like it needs to be
thrown out is a Yoruba banana. The aromatic, yellow scotch bonnet is called
Igbo pepper. A goat that stands tall, lean and shaggy is a Hausa goat.
Two weeks ago, at the peak of very primitive and treacherous
public rumours, someone told me that people were travelling all the way from
the Northern states of Nigeria in large uncovered trucks for the sole purpose
of positioning wheelbarrows of fruit in front of churches and poisoning
Southerners! “Don’t buy the oblong Hausa tomatoes because those are the ones
that have been poisoned by Northerners!”
It made writing this week’s column uncomfortable because I want
to talk freely about Nigerian bananas. We have always labelled them for where
they “come from”. Labels that are informal and jovial, silly even, yet in times
like this when our cultural differences are being emphasised for mischievous
purposes, not very cheerful or appropriate to use. I did consider phoning up
the eminent Professor Obot of Wildlife Conservation to ask for biological names
of bananas, but how wearying that would have made the whole thing.
In order to talk about bananas, I must tangentially talk about
my maternal grandfather who used to drive trains in the days of the steam
locomotive. He was called Baba Loco for that vocation. Intense, disagreeable,
extremely intelligent and a stammerer, he preferred to be left alone, a
difficult thing if you are Yoruba, and therefore one of “that people” who like
to effusively greet everything that moves.
One day, an acquaintance saw him shovelling coal into the bowels
of the train – this was what he did before graduating to driving one. He
proceeded to greet him with the words “O kare awe, yio gbe lomo lowo!” The
man’s greeting showed that he was in awe of the locomotive. It was an exuberant
“Well done Scholar, you will pass this vocation on to your children!”
My grandfather was livid. He shovelled the lumps of coal and
threw them at the man. Pass it on to his children indeed! My grandfather had
passed all the necessary exams but couldn’t go on to university because his
father, who had been wealthy but also indiscriminately polygamous couldn’t
afford to pay for him to go. It was for as long as I knew my grandfather, a
touchy point, and that man on that day had chosen the most inappropriate of
greetings.
You might well ask what my grandfather put in his six
children’s’ hands? The best education here and in foreign universities; and
food, varied, rich, lavish: delicately smoked fish from Jebba,
loaves of Shackle ford bread, poultry, beef, eggs…nothing was
too good for his children to eat. By the time his grandchildren were born, he
had nothing more to prove.
He brought us sugarcane and bananas from his farm. He brought
two types of bananas, the Latundan type banana that was vibrantly yellow,
short, fat, very sweet and not very creamy; and also the typical “Yoruba
banana” which is my absolute favourite.
And I have eaten bananas on three continents. The Yoruba banana
is only sold by one old lady in the whole of the Lekki new market and is a
scarce commodity until one reaches Lagos Island. It can be the ugliest most
dejected looking thing, the Yoruba banana. Rarely large, long, yellow or
“clean” (it always seems to have some organic matter hanging off it) but it is
beautifully creamy in texture. It is sweet but not too sweet.
The “Igbo banana” which is light green when ripe; larger in
generalised comparison; more attractive and easier to find, sold even in Lagos
traffic, has never done anything exciting for my taste buds. The word that
comes to mind whenever I eat one is “soap”.
What I am referring to as banana ice cream is neither ice cream
nor my own recipe. Health food buffs have been talking about it as an
alternative to dairy ice cream for many years. The thing is, it hits the same
cold creamy sweet spot as ice cream does. A couple of firm ripe bananas are
peeled and placed in the deep freezer until frozen.
They are brought out and
put in a blender by themselves or with a tablespoon of almond butter (I have
only found almond butter in Lagos on one occasion, so just putting them in the
blender by themselves is more realistic), or with some fresh ripe avocado. They
are blended (with great perseverance!) and eaten immediately, possibly accompanied
with a drizzle of honey, lime juice or homemade citrus biscuits.
Leave a Reply