Photo courtesy Eke Morgan The staples: rice and stew afang soup, cocoyam pottage (asa) and dried fish, yam pottage and dried fish

By Kevin Lambert
"Basically culture is the way of life of the people. It concerns both the way they eat, dress and live... [It is] the way of life of the people that considers culture its language. [It is] the way they prepare their food, their attitude towards it."
—Permanent secretary of culture and arts Nnamnso Umoren, Akwa Ibom state (and tourism.)

An old saying in Nigeria goes like this: If your husband/boyfriend/fiance ever has an Akwa Ibomite meal cooked for him by an Akwa Ibomite girl, forget you ever had a husband/boyfriend/fiancé, because he’s not coming back.

Food from Akwa Ibom is famous throughout Nigeria, and also the world. "It attracts people from all over Nigeria," says Eke Morgan, National Women and Youth Director of the Akwa Ibom State Association USA, who is renowned for her cooking. "There are specialty restaurants all over Nigeria. A friend of mine went to Asia and found an Akwa Ibomite restaurant."

Akwa Ibomite cuisine has a distinctive, regional quality that is rarely equaled. Eke credits "the taste. The way the food is being prepared, the ingredients and the presentation." Akwa Ibomites are noted for mixing different kinds of meat into their dishes, like Spanish paella.

The most popular Akwa Ibomite dish is Afang. Named after the African leaf of the same name, it is cut, shredded and blended with a water leaf, called Mmong mmong iking, which is very rich in vitamins. "To this you add any kind of meat that you want. It typically takes one to two hours. By the time the afang is ready, I have given it my all."

A close second is Pepe soup, one of the true delights in Akwa Ibomite cooking. It is peppered right up to the edge of being too spicy, but it never burns. It can be made with any type of meat, especially goat.

MEAT is in fact the one ingredient that Akwa Ibomite cooking cannot do without. "We love fish, smoked and dried, we have an abundance of that. And in any soup we cook we put the crayfish, which are tiny blended dried shrimp," Eke says.

PALM OIL, one of Akwa Ibom’s natural resources, is the olive oil of West Africa. "We use it to color the food and give it a good taste. We also use it as a sauce," Eke says.

The basic staples of Akwa Ibomite diet are:

YAMS. The yams, cousin to the sweet potato, especially, are vital in the West African Fufu. You can boil it, roast it pound it and turn it into Fufu. Fufu is a starchy derivative that few Africans seem to be able to live without. "I eat it once a week. I have to have it," says Ms. Morgan.

CASSAVA, the poor man’s staple, grows in the most unlikely conditions and has saved more African lives than peace treaties. Poems have been written about it. Pounded into mush, it is the basis for two of the most popular dishes in Africa, Garri and Fufu. These are both starchy dishes, compatible with practically everything.

BANANAS. "They are very important. They can be eaten ripe and unripe, if cooked in palm oil, corn or peanut oil," says Ms. Morgan. Fried plantains, similar to bananas, are sold on the streets in Africa, like crepes in France, and served with rice almost everywhere. It is one of the tastes that visitors think about all the time until they get back.

RICE. African rice has been cultivated for 3500 years, and it all started in the Niger River delta. Akwa Ibomites use it liberally, and most successfully with fried plantains and river fish.

American enterprise has developed some labor saving staples for our African population. Pounding yams for an hour rarely meshes with busy American schedules, so the African stores here have yam flour. "You just add water and boil and stir it. At home we pound the leaves, in the U.S. they just toss them into a blender," Eke says.

And if some things aren’t available, they can adapt well. "For instance, when you are making Afang, if you can’t get the water leaf you can use spinach."

The traditional luxury dish in Akwa Ibomite cooking is "ekpang. It is made from cocoyam, grated into balls and wrapped in special leaves. Then we add assorted meats and palm oil. During ceremonies, there are some varieties that have to be there."

The difference between poor folks’ and rich folks’ food isn’t as stark as in other societies. It’s mostly a mater of degree. "It would be limited by the amount of meat put into the food. It might not be as rich. It’s like a poor person and a rich person making gumbo. The rich people will put everything in."