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I
sent a blackberry message to my husband asking if he had had lunch. His
response, “… having porridge yam”. “You mean yam pottage” I proposed,
and received an abrupt, “…what the cook is making is porridge yam and
not yam pottage. Thank you!”

He was right of
course. Nigerians call it yam porridge even though porridge by strict
definition is oats or other grains or legumes boiled in water or milk
or both, usually served hot. But here we are living in the only country
in the world where the words “see your mouth!” are an insult and a
provocation. We must concede that we have our own legitimate way of
naming things. Oats cooked in milk or water is not porridge. No matter
the brand of the oats, it is “Quakeroats!”

As to the
disdainful drawing of attention to someone’s mouth by using the words,
“see your mouth!” or the other popular and perhaps more painful, “see
your head!” the question is: “What about my mouth?”

One does not need
to break this down for a Nigerian. The three words mean there is
something annoying about the mouth; either in the way that it is moving
in speech, or in it is mastication of food, or in the God given shape
of the whole thing. Even if it is a perfect enough mouth, the insult is
effective because ones lips are not in view like one’s hands or feet.
Its posture cannot be vigilantly monitored to ensure it is always
perfectly aligned. The insult is really about bestowing a dose of acute
self-consciousness on the person being insulted so his mind is
involuntarily divided in two. One half thinking up a face-saving
response and the other half frantically cogitating: “What about my
mouth…Well what about it?!”

It is yam porridge
for another reason: I find the duality of purpose of the mouth
fascinating. It speaks and it eats. And because these two fellows are
effectively sharing the same door, it is hard to argue about details of
their intimacy. If a Nigerian mouth says that what it is eating is yam
porridge, then that is what it is.

It is also
interesting to think about how we refer to our cooking or dining
implements. I used to wonder why it was necessary for Nigerians to say,
“please abeg”. Why is one “please” not sufficient? The answer I suppose
is simple enough; the speaker is making a strong emphasis and
distinguishing between a simple please and an earnest one.

And so it is with
words like “cooking pot” and “feeding spoon” and “broken plate” and
“glass cup” where we are emphasising and also distinguishing a flower
pot or water pot from a cooking one; a spoon for eating from one for
cooking; a ceramic plate from a “pan”, and a special guest worthy
drinking glass from a plain cup that any old body can drink out of.

I once planned an
expedition to Watt market in Calabar to find and buy a duck. I was
advised that in order not to waste my time and draw attention to
myself, attention that would only make it more difficult to negotiate
with traders in the market, I should ask for a “duck fowl” as opposed
to a simple “duck”. Rationale for the need of using both words being,
it is commonsensical that there are many types of fowl of which duck is
only one. Also, the words were not to be pronounced as two words but as
one. With the same intonation as if one were calling out “police!”
“duckfowl!” Simply asking for a duck and with the wrong intonation
would immediately set the trader’s mind to wondering which planet I had
recently dropped from.

My favourite has to
be the confusion (or clarity) of the description of sensory perception.
Let us say there is an aroma of food mouthwateringly wafting in one’s
direction, does the Nigerian smell it or hear it? Every true and
sincere Nigerian must admit that it is both. “You no hear dat smell?”
is as legitimate as “Do you smell that?” depending on the context.
Using the wrong words out of context would either be termed
inappropriate or pretentious.

Last year, a blogger called Steve Carper quoted from my piece “Never say pap” in his blog Planet Lactose.

The quote read:
“…I gained a new food obsession; homemade Guinea corn gruel also
known as Oka Baba or very commonly and plainly called Ogi, served with
unrestrained lashings of Obudu delight. Ogi is never ever referred to
at our house as “pap”… Obudu Delight by the way, is the name of the
honey produced in deep cloud layers in Obudu cattle ranch.”

He went on to say
that he had no clue what I was talking about. I must admit it made me
stop and think. Here I was writing in English, and to another English
speaker, I might as well have been speaking in Sanskrit. Did it make me
change my ways? Of course not! The people to whom I am speaking
understand me perfectly. Eavesdroppers must, after all, know their
place.

And it would be dishonest to promise what I cannot do. If our food
is what we call it, then I cannot say it is otherwise. Take note all
eavesdroppers: “swallow” is a verb, a bird, and a morsel of gari,
amala, semo or pounded yam: chop is synonymous to the word “eat” as
“slapping” is synonymous to “blowing” and is also the adjective for
describing the pain pleasure sensation from a “criminally cold” drink,
etc. etc.