Celebrating Nigerian History + Culture Through Food
This piece is a part of a series that explores the legacy of slavery and colonialism on identity, history and culture in Africa and the Black diaspora. Read the primer piece here.
Photo courtesy of Augustina Boateng
Written by Augustina Boateng
Trips home have always been one of the few things I usually look forward to during the holidays, as some of us well know, the holidays are for large gatherings, a dose of some family drama and, just maybe, the discovery of some hidden family secrets one may have possibly never heard of.
On this particular trip, I got into a discussion with my grandpa about his favorite dish called bitter leaf soup – as the name implies the taste is just so bitter and horrid to me that I wouldn’t even bother lying about this to anyone except my grandpa. I knew this was my grandpa’s favorite dish being that we shared a special bond, we were both the only explorers in our family, but with this soup, we were just too far apart on our differences, though he had no idea I felt this way.
Earlier that day I really was just setting out to understand why this soup was his favorite, and probably to also get reconfirmation in case I was wrong about this being his favorite.
This soup is a regularly made meal at home and I just couldn’t keep up with the pretense that I loved it any more. I guess I was just looking for a chance to say this without hurting his feelings.
I always cherished the moments my grandfather and I spent making this dish as I could easily see how happy this made him and due to this fact I did not want to hurt his feelings by saying that I hated this soup point-blank.
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I guess I was also curious to know why this soup was his favorite, but my question took a different turn into a deeper conversation on his survival during the civil war.
He was about 15 at the time of the Nigerian civil war, and just as it is with every war that has ever happened, the most basic fallout in wars besides homelessness has always been food scarcity and starvation.
This was no different during the Nigerian civil war which began in 1967 and went on for three years, being a civil war the south-eastern part of the country took the greatest hit, by simply being cut off from their food routes, the blockage of the sea-port, railways and airports made getting food into this part of the country impossible, and it remained so for the duration of the war.
The scarcity of food only got worst with time, even homegrown foods were not an option due to the fact that people were constantly moving to avoid being killed by bombs being dropped by air raids.
As a result, more people lost their lives from starvation and malnutrition than the total number of casualties caused by the war itself – there was an estimated death toll caused by starvation of 3 million.
During the war, most people in the south-eastern part of Nigeria had to resort to eating unbelievable things like frogs, snakes, and vultures basically just anything that could keep them alive.
Selina Molteno and Robin Cohen’s book, titled An Expatriate Family in the Nigerian Civil War. Read More: roape.net/2021/02/03/getting-food-and-drink-in-the-nigerian-civil-war/
My curious research lead to the discovery of many things – the most important being information about how most southern Nigerian cuisines came about from the impact of the war.
People simply had to do with what was available, which included anything from wild fruits, leaves and vegetables, to the unthinkable things like those animals earlier mentioned which were previously taught inedible in this part of the country.
For these people, their survival came at a price as most of these foods were discovered to be poisonous, many just ate without thinking due to starvation.
A plus side to this devastating history – they also learned a lot from these trying times and a good deal of cuisine was born from this and most have stuck around defying time, and not-so-healthy origins.
Almost an hour into our talk, my grandpa’s mood suddenly changed from happy to sad and a few minutes later he became solemn and barely said anymore.
At this point, I knew it would be better not to push for more seeing how hurtful that memory must be for him, although at that point I was really interested to know more. I can say I became obsessed with this story and really wanted to know how he had survived.
My mum had no idea about my grandpa’s story, as he had never told anyone his experience during the war. I learnt about the civil war from school and the impact it created but barely knew much about it aside from the basics of cause.
Out of curiosity, I began asking more about the war from elderly people who were willing to talk from old newspaper clippings. My research for how people survived without food during that period and evidently I don’t think I was prepared to know so much.
Here’s the most heartbreaking of all my findings that seems impossible yet actually happened: After the war, when relief for food finally came in, the surviving children had no idea even what to do with food when it was offered to them. Healthy edible food was basically a foreign concept. The children just stared at the food but never took a bite, having no idea what real food was or looked like.
Instead, they just collected their ration, dropped it and went right back to eating what they were now used to.
In the end, the war helped shaped the southern Nigerian food culture, today the south-eastern part of Nigeria is known for its rich and abundance of cuisine.
On my journey through this research, I came to realize that this experience is not symbolic of the Nigerian civil war but rather it’s a global phenomenon.
Almost all countries worldwide that have gone through a war or any form of a plague had at some point had to try different things that were not exactly conventional to survive.
Some of these non-conventional foods were incorporated over the years into the region’s food culture unknowingly.
While most of these foods’ histories are getting lost over time, many people have no idea certain foods and their origins even existed in the first place.
Humans are known for their superpowers, that is, their resilient spirit of adaptability to their environment, survival and food that lies at the heart of every basic necessity.
Humans have always had a way of surviving, of making do with what was available. Some of these foods born out of pure necessity have stuck around and even gone on to become quite popular.
Today, finally it dawned on me that my grandpa’s love for this soup had more to do with the memories and history than the taste.
Augustina Boateng (she/her) is a freelance writer and content creator, who could be found on Twitter tweeting about any form of injustice particularly about those that affects women.