The soul of our culture is tucked in between spices and the delicacy of the local kitchen. These Traditional cuisines, like many oral traditions, have been passed from one generation to another with food practices often memorized and hardly documented.
The recipe of the people is a reflection of their history. The enormously populated Nigeria is extravagantly multicultural, and in this diversity lies a unique aspect-food!
Let’s dive into the rare culinary of some Nigerian cultures; our lives could just be a combination of magic and good food.
Ekpalana
From the urban street of Yenogoa to the hidden creeks of Oloibiri where oil was discovered first, there is a food that unites the Ijaw people of Bayelsa. Ekpalana! An upgrade of Kekefia (another popular southern dish) is used for special occasions. Plantain in whatever form is useful; ripe, unripe, or overripe, plantain would always serve the right purpose with its endless culinary expressions.
First, you chop unripe plantain into tiny bits or cubes, put it on fire to boil with just enough water. Next, you cut off a whole plantain leaf and pass it over the fire to slightly wilt slowly. This creates a coat on the leaf, that way it doesn’t tear off easily. Add some fish or meat or snail already garnished with grounded crayfish and Uziza seed, spices and placed inside the plantain leaves. This is wrapped up and tied carefully with palm fronds. Once done, you cook in a pot along with your plantain till soft. This process gives the plantain porridge a distinct flavour. The liquid paste produced from the porridge is then separated as soup that will be eaten along with the porridge and some palm oil.
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