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I’m in Thelma
Bello’s kitchen learning to cook Ntutulikpo. My teacher is a quick
elderly lady called Mrs. Ekpata. Her mother taught the soup to Aunty
Thelma, now she is teaching it to me.

I can tell from the
way she sometimes looks at me that she is wondering what planet I
dropped from. I have never heard of Oziza leaf (!)? I don’t like
crayfish (!)? I don’t know that old Ogbono seeds are more valued than
the new ones (!)?

I feel compelled to remind her that I am Yoruba. She is not moved.

Ntutulikpo belongs
to the Ekoi people. It is difficult to describe who the Ekoi are
because wherever you find the magnificent Oyono, the Cross River, you
will find them. The Oyono begins as Manyu in Cameroon, flows deep and
wide, turning like a heavy cloak in a storm through the Cross River
lands named after its waters, owns a mouth in the Atlantic Ocean and is
joined to the Aloma River in Benue State by a tributary.

This is a mere
sketch of the river’s physical boundaries. If we wanted to commit to a
geographical location, the Ekoi are an extreme south eastern Nigerian
people, coastal people, not only in Biase, in Akampka and in Bahumono
local government areas in Cross River, but also in Cameroon and in Igbo
coastal lands.

The thing about
melon, or Egusi is that most of the time, we underestimate it, and for
the remaining time, we argue about who really, really owns the
methodology for cooking it in a particular way. Egusi is as universal
and as diversified as the Nigerian yam. We grow over three hundred
different species, and the Egusi vine is belligerent, covering miles of
sandy ground in a matter of days.

Mrs. Ekpata
describes at least three novel ways of cooking melon seeds: I like the
sound of the melon cake, a savoury snack made from ground melon seeds
pounded in a mortar, moulded and steamed on plantain leaves in a
covered pot, then roasted on an open fire until it is crumbly like a
biscuit.

Then there is melon
moinmoin made out of the same ground, lightly pounded seeds mixed with
whatever one desires, a little water, wrapped in leaves and steamed.
The moinmoin must be finished in an oven to get the best aromatics.

The Ntutulikpo is
made from similarly ground melon seeds. The original traditional seeds
used were a green specie. For the average pot of soup, one needs two
cups of melon seeds. After the seeds are ground, they are put in a
wooden mortar with some chopped onion, some freshly ground pepper, salt
and a tiny amount of water. The ground seeds are pounded with a pestle
until melon oil separates from the seed and the mixture holds together
and is pliable. This takes about twenty minutes of hard work.

The oil is drained
and can be used for frying or cooking some other dish. The mixture is
divided and molded into small balls and they are carefully placed in a
pot of boiling water that is salted and sprinkled with a few slivers of
onion. Depending on the size of the Egusi balls, the boiling can take
up to three hours. They are cooked when they are a uniform white colour
on the inside of the balls.

The Ntutulikpo is
usually cooked for festive occasions, for weddings and funerals and at
Christmas, so traditionally one would have boiled a great big pot of
every type of available meat. At Aunty Thelma’s we had stockfish,
smoked fish (Inara), beef, pomo and shaki that had been prepared ahead
of time.

The melon seed
balls took about an hour and a quarter to cook. By this time, the water
in which they were cooked had reduced considerably, so the Egusi and
its water, was added to the meat and its stock and everything left to
simmer for a while. Half a cup of ground crayfish was added and a
little palm oil: Enough to colour the soup nicely, but not enough to
make it oily.

The Ntutulikpo can
be thickened with either Ogbono or with Ewedu leaf. Apparently, Ewedu
(Jute plant leaves) grows well on the banks of the Cross River. The
thickener is required because the molded melon no longer has the
ability to hold the soup together. The soup is finished with chopped
Oziza leaf. For a soup with no “draw”, yam can be used as a thickener
instead of Ogbono.

The Ntutulikpo is a
velvety soup. The Ogbono does not so much give it the “draw” quality as
much as smoothness on the palate. The palm oil adds to the aromatics as
well as reddening the soup’s face appropriately. For me meat was
completely superfluous because the Egusi balls have a meaty texture
from the pounding and long boiling.

Ntutulikpo is customarily served with pounded yam, but I was happy
to eat it on its own. Texturally, it is an extremely sophisticated
soup, not to talk of the aromatics; nutty Egusi, heated palm oil,
sweetish, earthy Ogbono, underlying onion and the mint/basil smack of
the Oziza leaf…