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For a certified
glutton, it is somewhat contradictory that I should have the ability to
happily live off three foods: I don’t have to eat red meat or bread. I
rarely ever eat chicken. If I were kidnapped at Ikot Ekpene and carried
off to some undisclosed location, like a friend of mine was, my captors
would only have to feed me small creamy yellow Yoruba bananas,
baby-gourd shaped avocadoes (with a little kosher salt) and gourmet
chocolate (with pepper, please). Some brown rice crackers would go well
with the avocado. I’m not at all fussy. Stewed stockfish is a new
passion for me. It took me over 35 years to befriend that terrifying
smell that lingers on your lips and fingers. Or to get used to the
strain stockfish puts on your teeth; the way the fish fills the space
between them until they feel like they are being pushed out of their
roots. This does not mean that I now like the smell of stockfish, only
that I have turned my attention to that graceful collapse of the
stockfish when it is left sitting in hot soup for a couple of hours. I
eat it out of the pot, so no one will ask me for some.

The idea of
cinnamon could only have come out of God’s mind. Fried plantain, in the
words of Amma Ogan’s father, is the food of the gods. A combination of
fried plantain and cinnamon is a sin. I love fresh cinnamon sticks, and
there is nothing like the big sweet warm woody spicy aroma of fresh
cinnamon. Like pepper, it goes in almost everything that I cook: in my
morning coffee with honey, used as a two-day-long marinade for chicken,
generously sprinkled over boiling meat, added to a lazy pot of plain
basmati rice with turmeric fennel and bay leaf…devoured just plain
like that. A seasoning for fresh catfish simmered in palm oil, and a
delicate highlight in porridge made with potatoes and cabbage.

My favourite
cooking oil is coconut oil, never mind those naysayers who say it will
give you a cardiac arrest. I have a clandestine source in a West
African country where you go, sit under wise coconut trees and watch
the locals process the freshest, most incredible smelling coconut oil
under the sun. The aroma of coconut oil poured into a hot pan is a
revelation, a little cinnamon added and, yet again, one is sinning. My
stews, against my proffered advice to others, have become a dogmatic
affair. They must always be cooked in an oven. Cooking them is a
longwinded affair that frustrates those waiting to eat, but at the end,
it is so smooth on the palate that you can just drink it like soup.

Okra soup is my
ultimate comfort food, cut in large chunks and cooked briskly with hot
fragrant peppers, onions, shinenose fish belly and freshly harvested
ugwu. The face of my food must unfailingly have colour; palm oil red or
turmeric or brown, or green, never without specks of fennel or thyme or
pepper or something.

Blandness in food
equals queasiness. Garlic, ginger and onions are fundamental to most of
the meals I prepare. I cannot go one whole week without eating hot
peppers or else I become depressed. There is an exception to my love of
colour; fufu, with its excruciatingly beautiful, smooth texture. It is
a good thing that I don’t often stumble on fufu that doesn’t smell. I
would be as big as a house. Any ‘swallow’ that can be microwaved like
fufu can, in my opinion, deserves a national award.

Chocolate, and hot freshly fried puff puffs wrapped in the smell of
old newsprint, are my two greatest weaknesses. I can in fact resist
chocolate but never ever puff puffs. The near-perfect dessert is
chocolate mousse served with dashes of Tabasco. Our very own Milo mixed
with peppermint tea, Darifree, honey and a quarter teaspoon of hot
Cameroonian pepper is my beloved twist on a Starbucks beverage. I cook
every day; many days, six different meals. Every day, I resolve to
continue to cook my family fresh hot meals, and every day, I regret the
decision. If I could have any meal of my choosing right now, it would
be some sticky rice or ofada rice served with stewed smoked catfish and
a hot steaming moin moin with a whole egg in it. It is indisputable
that I love food.