A GREAT FEAST

Hot, smoky jollof rice. 

The type that is cooked by fat women, not overweight women, not obese women, but fat women sitting on benches, their arms flapping with the effort it takes to turn such great pots of jollof rice.

Abula.

That is, the complete amala diet; amala pressed into a semi circle, laden with scoops of hot ewedu and gbegiri and topped with peppery stew and meat, all of the assorted kinds: kpomo, towel, shaki, roundabout and some beef of course. 

Pounded yam.

Not the fake that is called poundo. But yam that has been boiled to perfection, yam that is grown to be made into pounded yam at the end of its life. Fluffy and white, the end product of two young men bent over an unyielding mortar. The sweat from their brows determines how enjoyable the food will be.

Egusi.

Not the watery type that aunt Bimbo cooks on Sunday evenings, please. This one has litres and litres of palm oil and enough obstacles to hinder the rolling of morsels in the plate. Giant balls of yellow egusi held together by tiny green leaves and fragrant bits and pieces of kpomo, stockfish and dried fish.

Puff puff, akara and moin moin.

Fruit salad prepared by aunt Moji herself.

Chicken suya, peppered kpomo and goat meat.

If Grandma Labake came from her mother's village, we knew that peppered snails would be included on the menu.

And catfish peppersoup. Catfish reared by Grandpa on his farm, specially fattened for his grandchildren and no one else.

Such was our celebration at Christmases and New Years in the village. Cousins and aunts and uncles and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law gathered in Grandpa's house, feasting, scheming and plotting. I wasn't aware of the latter, I only knew of the former for wherever the food was, there I would be. And did we eat!

Then, Grandpa died.

And the center could no longer hold.

My mother said we were never going back to the village because Aunt Suliya had killed Grandpa and would soon begin to go after his grandchildren.

We never saw our cousins again, and we never ate hot smoky jollof rice turned by fat women with flapping arms again.

The End.

I was hungry when I wrote this, and I also decided to salute my friends who cook primarily as a career choice. Add a little bit of witchery here, some evil relatives there and there's a complete serving!

Oh, and I found the photo on Twitter.

Enjoy!