Description
Book Synopsis"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
Table of ContentsIntroduction 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