pepe
In Iko Esai, if it’s not hot, then it’s not food. Lots and lots of chili pepper, ground to a pulp on a slab of rock, is what make Nigerian dishes. In the south, particularly, the popular food is “pepe soup” – goat or fish pepper soup, which is basically meat cooked in water and red hot chili peppers. And this can only be taken with rice, while other “soups” are supposed to be taken with what is called “swallow”, so named because they form some sticky mush into small balls, dip it in the soup and swallow wi
thout chewing. Into this category belong pounded yam, garri (cassava minus all the starch), fufu (fermented cassava), and semovita (some white mound made of wheat, popular in the north). Plantain (sab-a) is also a staple. What is called soup is not really soup as we know it, but a wet mixture of leaves sliced into tiny bits, onion, some kind of meat, usually also with dried fish, “maggi” (MSG cubes), and yes, pepper. Ask for rice to come with this and you spend half an hour explaining what you want. With all this variety in staple food (compared to rice for every meal in the Philippines), I really can’t understand why food here is the same wherever you go. And yet Nigerians scoff at Oyibo (white man) food, and wouldn’t touch most anything, particularly where garlic is concerned.
In Iko Esai, if it’s not hot, then it’s not food. Lots and lots of chili pepper, ground to a pulp on a slab of rock, is what make Nigerian dishes. In the south, particularly, the popular food is “pepe soup” – goat or fish pepper soup, which is basically meat cooked in water and red hot chili peppers. And this can only be taken with rice, while other “soups” are supposed to be taken with what is called “swallow”, so named because they form some sticky mush into small balls, dip it in the soup and swallow wi
thout chewing. Into this category belong pounded yam, garri (cassava minus all the starch), fufu (fermented cassava), and semovita (some white mound made of wheat, popular in the north). Plantain (sab-a) is also a staple. What is called soup is not really soup as we know it, but a wet mixture of leaves sliced into tiny bits, onion, some kind of meat, usually also with dried fish, “maggi” (MSG cubes), and yes, pepper. Ask for rice to come with this and you spend half an hour explaining what you want. With all this variety in staple food (compared to rice for every meal in the Philippines), I really can’t understand why food here is the same wherever you go. And yet Nigerians scoff at Oyibo (white man) food, and wouldn’t touch most anything, particularly where garlic is concerned. 
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