The Beauty Of The Nigerian Left Over…

The beauty of the Nigerian left over. Okra soup from the night before, warmed up with slightly cold eba; eaten right before it’s time for school. It was either you stayed home from school to hit the snooze button or you went to school to take a long nap. And if you went to school; thinking you’d beat the sleep, I can bet365 online that you would even drool on your desk while napping 🙂

Some days ago I had some left over Egusi soup and eba. There was something about that meal that had me speaking in different languages. If not for the various dialects of Igbo that I was speaking, I’m sure Hungarian would have made the list of languages that I spoke on that day. After my meal, it got me thinking if Nigerians liked left overs and what their favorite leftovers are.

Growing up, we weren’t big on “refrigerator food’ in our household. Not only because it’s the way our father raised us; hence we became that way, but more because of Nepa(Nigerian electric power authority Aka “Never expect power always”) always turned off the power so there was no working refrigerator to keep food from going bad.

Seeing the situation with Nepa, we cooked food in little increments and when we had left overs, we had to warm them up before bed and the morning after to prevent them from going bad. During those times, my favorite food to warm up was Egusi soup with pumpkin leaves and Eba (processed cassava flakes).

These days, while there is still no constant power, there are generators to generate power and people can get their left overs into the fridge. Nigeria and their own form of democracy, where each man is his own, local government chair man, senator, governor and president. It’s such a shame.

Back to the reason for this post…leftovers…

I asked my Nigerian followers which of their favorite Nigerian foods they liked as left overs and the choices varied from beans pottage to Jollof rice.

Think about it. One day old Egusi or Banga (palm nut cream) soup warmed up over open fire in a clay pot and cold eba. This meal can bring about world peace. I have also had leftover fried rice, but if you have ever made Jollof rice and eaten it a few days after cooking it? Jesus nwa Joseph! (Jesus son of Joseph)

There’s also something about leftover cooking that makes life seem so easy. Growing up we always made rice and stew every Sunday. On Monday morning, my mom poured the stew into the left over white rice and turned it into stir fry Jollof rice. There were days we made yam and pepper soup and the next day turned it into Ukodo; a thicker version of the regular pepper soup. One day we ran out of food for breakfast, but we had boiled some yam and had made veggie eggs the night before. My mom ‘the Chef’ decided to make some pottage yam with the left over yam. All she did was pour some oil and pureed peppers into a pot with seasonings, chicken and dry fish and before too long, we were eating yam pottage for breakfast and I even had some to take with me to school. It was like a rebranding of the yam. It’s all in the packaging oh; according to Nigerians 😀

To me, cooking fresh food is delicious, but left over foods are everything. Now, these are the reasons I cannot lose any weight despite all the fitfam runs I do. How can you have day old suya and not make a makeshift shawarma with it? (insert favorite emoji here). Diet gbakwa oku! (shame on diet)

Nigerian foods can easily be made over into conventional meals. Meals that I can bet will beat any “continental meal” at anytime and any day. Like we say, it’s all in the packaging.

Have leftover nuts and some sugar? Make nut  brittle 🙂

The possibilities with Nigerian food is endless. All you have to do is go through your fridge and your pantry and you have food with nothing wasted 🙂

What’s your favorite Nigerian food, what’s your favorite left over?

all na packaging!






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