Full Description
"One of the most enduring myths on the Nigerian Femme Fatale - mammy-water, 'winch' or husband-snatcher - has to do with the cooking of fish stew ...A woman can do what she likes with a man when she knows how to satisfy his appetite for food."Longthroat Memoirs presents a sumptuous menu of essays about Nigerian food, lovingly presented by the nation's top epicurean writer. As well as a mouth-watering appraisal of the cultural politics and erotics of Nigerian cuisine, it is also a series of love letters to the Nigerian palate. From innovations in soup, fish as aphrodisiac and the powerful seductions of the yam, Longthroat Memoirs examines the complexities, the peculiarities, the meticulousness, and the tactility of Nigerian food. Nigeria has a strong culture of oral storytelling, of myth creation, of imaginative traversing of worlds. Longthroat Memoirs collates some of those stories into an irresistible soup-pot, expressed in the flawless love language of appetite and nourishment.A sensuous testament on why, when and how Nigerians eat the food they love to eat; this book is a welcome addition to the global dining table of ideas
Contents
Introduction
A Bowl of Aloof Nigerian Soup
How to Make Meat
The Purist's Pot of Soup
My Mother, I Will Not Eat Rice Today
Bones of Choice
Eating Dog
Akara and Honey
Kings of Umami
Letter from Candahar Road
Okro Soup, Gorgeous Mucilage
Long Throat Memoirs
The Snail Tree
Fainting at the Sight of an Egg
Sweet Stolen Waters
Forgotten Seasoning Secrets
A Beautiful Girl Named Ogbono
Henshaw Town Beach Market
Ekoki Like Gold
To Cook or Not to Cook
Okro Soup and the Demonic Encyclopaedia of Dreams
Oseani Mellowing, Bursting, Deepening, Merging
Institution of Stew
Lost in Translation
Afang Soup and Hairy Legs
Between Eba and Gari
Ila Cocoa
Nsala with Chicken
Fermentation and Fornication
Rice in Many Guises
Fish Soups and Love Potions
Dead Man's Helmet
Peppered Snails
Ram Testicle Suya
Ewa Oloyin
Bush Cuisine
Between a Trophy and a Wife
The Secret Ingredient of My Secret Ingredient Soup
Molara's Jollof Beans
The Marketplace
Safe as Stews
A Pot from Efak Satan
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
