Have you ever wondered why Igbo cuisine has so much variety?

Igbo food is currently dominating the Nigerian food sphere, and as Igbos continue to migrate across the country and beyond, more and more are outsides being introduced to the wide array of Igbo cuisine. For many non-Igbos, the amount of food variety even within one town can be quite surprising.

The reason that Igbo traditional food is so diverse is due to roughly three factors that experts have identified contributed to a nation having good cuisine.

A dedicated kitchen(s)

A long history

Access to a wide variety of spices, meats and ingredients in general. (Will explain this in further detail later)

Some Igbo delicacies

More Igbo delicacies

More

Lala, thus thing deserve FP.
Omo see chow, one of the few reasons I wan marry igbo girl. Though I still believe calabar has more varieties
Btw, that Banga soup is a Niger Delta food and not igbo.
Pls those attacking me, I didn't say u guys dont have ur own banga soup o, I am just saying banga soup originated from the Niger Delta.

More...

Those pictures were definitely not all the delicacies that Igboland has to offer, but I just want to go back to talking about the factors that influenced it's variety.

The first is Access to spices and ingredients...

Due to their unique geographical location as well as their farming culture , Igbos used a variety of ingredients such as tubers, leafs, carbs such as rice, sorghum, yam, cocoyam, plantain, etc, ect.

Proteins ( beef, goat, fowl, snails, seafood, plant proteins....)

as well as leaf and plants, and a wide variety of mushrooms

Along with that, similarly to the chinese and Indians, Igbos were not afraid to experiment with the ingredients around them

Also importantly, was the amount of spices that Igbos grew and used regularly.

Prior to the advent of maggi, the average Igbo family was able to create very flavourful dishes with the various spices that could be found around igboland. Some of them can be seen below:

Even up to now, it is much easier to find igbos cookign foods with little to no imported ingredients compared to some other groups.

some of them below

You're sure the efik/ibibio don't have more varieties?
Anyway,which one you want give us chop?

However, The most important reason to why Igbos have such as large variety of foods however, is dedicated kitchens.

For example, look at nations with a large variety of dishes such as Indian and Chinese cuisine. This was as a result of a royal court, having the time and resources to cook high-quality and diverse dishes for the royal family. This would not be the case for peasants, much of their time an energy working for the royals.

However, this was different among Igbos. Igbos didn't live in a feudal society, they lived in a largely egalitarian society.
That meant that within each compound, there were were dedicated staff, such as servants, slaves and wifes, whose primary or sometimes sole duty was to to produce high-quality dishes for the family within the compound.

You are somewhat right...


Aside the popular delicacies like Egusi with ugu, ogbono, oha, abacha, olugbu, Nsala or others, each community and regions in Ala-Igbo have their distinct meals and food that they so much cherish.

You can find among the Nsukkas Okpa, ayaraya ji, ayaraya az'z' (oka), otupiri, igbangwu, Aribo etc

Among the Nkanu and Nike people they have their fiofio, akidi and some other meals

Owerri have their popular soups,

Abia people, they equally have their various soups kinda looking like those of the Akwa-Ibom

And lots more...

The interesting thing here is that these varieties of foods are prepared mainly using the popularly known ingredients and little unknown ingredients to distinguish their food.

This egalitarian structure meant that food culture for Igbos very different from their more feudal societes.

First of all, due to this egalitarian structure, the average Igbo person had access to higher-quality foods:

In a realtively equal society, the average family had more time to create elaborate dishes and experiment with new ingredients and could actively reject food that they did not like solely due to factors such as taste.

Even now you can make a comparison of average Igbo foods to foods from other non-Igbos. Igbo foods on average tend to be of a higher quality, healthier, loaded with more spices and farmed and wild produce. Along with having complex procedures such as fermentation, slow-cooking and washing, that could take days on end.

This is in comparison to the average foods of more feudal groups, which largely has less ingredients and very basic cooking procedures. Which points to it's origins as more of sustenance or gruel to get through the day.


---- A strong example of this: Some time ago, I saw a comfort food recipe from one African group. A similar recipe was historically used among Igbos as a punishment for errant wives.

Second, due to their egalitarian structure Igbos rarely ate cooked food outside....

For most of world history, before the advent of restaurants, having to buy your food outside the home, i.e takeaway, showed that you were from a very low station indeed. The food was almost always very simple, it was not fresh and had risk of being rotten or spoiled, and it likely could have been cooked too quickly or very poorly. For the most part, It was simply gruel to get through the day.

For example, In ancient Roman times, it was the wealthy of Rome that could afford to have kitchens and servants that would cook foods for them on demand. The average poor roman citizen had to make do with buying inferior 'fast food' from shops and vendors outside.

However, unlike them, The average Igbo lived in relatively large compounds with seasonal kitchens that always had people dedicated to attending them and cooking for the household. These compounds grew everything or almost everything that they needed fresh and was sourced on demand.

A wealthy Igbo person wouldn't be caught dead buying food outside, only the most vulnerable in Igbo society would even consider that. Because of that, It would have been much harder to find cooked food or 'street food' in Igbo markets, compared to less egalitarian socieites because the demand just wasn't there.

This is why average Igbo foods tend to be more elaborate.

OK, I will now go back to posting more Igbo delicacies

...

Some soups. For most known Igbo soups, like someone pointed out, various villages and towns have diverse ways of preparing. Some of them to the degree that they end up being almost something new.

More soups

Good food One reason I wish to marry from my side

Does anyone else have any pictures of Igbo delicacies? ( preferably not soups). I personally would have posted more soups. (And there are a lot of them) But I already created a thread focusing on them here:

https://www.nairaland.com/6364237/showcasing-diversity-igbo-cuisine

I have heard of a lot more foods myself, but the sad thing is that there are no google images I can find to support it. Taking pictures of your village or town's foods is always a welcome development.

Unlike those that only eat algae soup cooked with toilet broom

Establish Igbo kitchen anywhere in Nigeria and watch how the locals will abandon their own and be thronging there.

No be chides, he who God don bless....

...

Shiver99:
More soups

This is why as a confirm Yoruba guy from Igbęsa Ogun state i will marry an igbo woman so that I will also enjoy these foods in my lifetime and not just the Amala ati Ewedu my Yoruba wife has been forcing down my throat ever since we got married.

Igbos has more food variety than ibibio has.

....

....n

Michelle70:
Lala, thus thing deserve FP.
Omo see chow, one of the few reasons I wan marry igbo girl. Though I still believe calabar has more varieties
Btw, that Banga soup is a Niger Delta food and not igbo

marry southsouth and you will never regret it. It na food things o, I give it to southsouth.

adedayoa2:
marry southsouth and you will never regret it. It na food things o, I give it to southsouth.

ya, Calabar, and urhobo takes the crown

...

Shiver99:
Some Igbo delicacies

Ekpang belongs to the efiks.It is not an Igbo delicacy