Luckily, you don’t have to fly to Nigeria to enjoy the country’s diverse array of cuisines. “Nigeria’s food culture bears the characteristics of expansionism and exchange with different pieces of Africa,” says Tiffaney Odewale, one of the owners of Houston’s Taste of Nigeria. Many credit the northern Hausa people for creating Suya, a popular skewered meat seasoned with a blend of peanut and spices. Northern Nigerians often center their meals around the most accessible local cattle or livestock. In the south, red palm oil is a staple in recipes for dishes like egusi soup and akara. Now that I’ve graduated from goat flesh, I think I’m ready for goat eyeballs.Aside from Jollof rice, which is a popular staple across the country, it’s hard to pinpoint a single definition of “Nigerian cuisine.” The most populous African nation, Nigeria, is home to 250 indigenous tribes that contribute to the country’s diverse cuisine, which varies from region to region.Īlong the coast, people naturally eat more seafood than in other parts of the country. Sietsema’s pals pulled out bits of forehead and lips, but Sietsema himself (who, incidentally, is easily my favorite food writer anywhere) “won the prize when pulled an eyeball out of the sand-colored goo.” I realized that we did a pretty crappy job of ordering: instead of getting the rather pedestrian goat-tomato stew, I shoulda asked for the isiewu (goat head stew, no longer on Buka’s printed menu), which apparently includes identifiable goat facial features. But both the tomato sauce and okra were startlingly bland compared with the moi moi and asaro the tomato and okra tasted fresh, but they were lamentably uninteresting.Īfter our meal, I accidentally ran across Robert Sietsema’s 2010 review of Buka in the Village Voice. The goat part of it was perfectly fine: it was phenomenally tender (at least by goat standards), and wasn’t even the slightest bit gamey. To my surprise, the somewhat exotic-sounding goat stewed in tomato with okra sauce and fufu was a dud. which tastes better than it looks, I promise Unnecessarily detailed picture of Buka's amazing asaro. I was jealous of my companion for ordering it, and kept picking at her plate whenever she looked away.
It was a simple dish, often served as the starchy base for a meat topping, but the spices were rich and delicious. My texture-sensitive companion was (understandably) turned off by the “mouthfeel” of the stuff, but I loved it.įor her entrée, my wise companion ordered asaro ($10 for the standard version, a few bucks more if you want a meat topping), a fiery glob of sautéed yams, with flecks of onion, cumin, and ginger, among other seasonings. But damn, it was delicious: a spicy bean pudding, filled with unexpected flecks of fish, olive, and boiled egg. The description on the menu was tantalizingly cryptic: “ground steamed honey bean cake.” We were served an unappetizing-looking spongy thing that looked like it came straight from a fifth-grader’s failed experiment with a jello mold. To accompany my girly drink (my dining companion, who actually is a girl, ordered a Guinness, and laughed at me for drinking pink stuff) we ordered a non-girly appetizer called moi moi ($5). Also, providing lunch delivery/take-away services one can easily try our exotic food in the comfort of their office or on the go. My confused Iowan brothers would probably try to use this to wipe up spilled guava juice Looking back, I’m pretty sure that the stinky gamey taste was partly in my head I just wasn’t psychologically ready to embrace goat until I’d eaten it a few times. I wasn’t completely open-minded about the kangaroo salad, either-though I ultimately thought the kangaroo meat was tastier than the lame vegetables that accompanied it.Īnd goat? I thought it was a skinky, gamey beast when I first tried it. I love good chicharron now, but that took a few tries. Did I give the Bajan cow hooves a completely fair shot? Probably not-I nibbled at them, nodding bravely, and trying hard not to think about what I was eating. In A BoxFried Rice In A BoxWhite Rice Buka Sauce or StewHoney Beans/Agege. I honestly love gelatinous Korean fish skins and slimy okra, but it’s hard for me to be truly open-minded about offal, hooves, and other “non-Midwestern” meat products, despite my best efforts. Nigerian Jollof, Egusi Soup, Fufu Pounded Yam and lot more, weve got you. I’m allegedly a well-traveled guy with a reasonably adventurous palate, but sometimes I realize that I have irrational, Midwestern-esque mental blocks about certain foods. Wanna scare my brothers in Iowa? Put this in front of them, and make bleating sounds. Back With Boiled Rice Served With Green Vegetable Stew African Recipes Nigerian Food, West African.
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