₦airaland Forum

RedboneSmith:
Cross is dyslexic. Dyslexic people don’t see shapes and symbols the way other people do. I expected him to struggle with this.

Isn’t dyslexia more about letters than shapes? Do you not mean dyspraxia?

I actually hate AI.

Arda1000:
nics joke but okpa and jollof rice is worth more than garri and sugar

It is.

Facebook really struggled from the end of 2013 right up until the beginning of 2019 (for under-35s it was literally all about Instagram and Snapchat then) but we’re in a more balanced place again in terms of utilising all these social-media apps. I feel like a lot of people who fell out of love with Facebook for large chunks of the 2010s are back in the game now low-key. Some people hardly add personal captions to anything they post but just share stories of things they find interesting and relevant in a way that’ll give people a feel of who they are to an extent and some of what they stand for. Some just use it as a more impersonal/less ominous way of DMing someone and remain grateful for Messenger continuing to serve its function and do its ting. Some people are still stuck in 2008/2011 with the whole F.B. craze but kudos to them still. Everyone needs somewhere where they can feel connected.

Lots of people share incredibly interesting stuff on their feed (even me now, sef and if I do say so). I wouldn’t want to miss out on that so I do still pay attention here-and-there. It’s not everyone who doesn’t mind being your Facebook friend who wants to have you all up in their Insta. so it’s a great way to stay updated but with that layer of privacy (Insta.‘s more intimate and a bit more reserved for the people you know well or want to see you in a certain light).

Are Ogba people Igbo?

mariahAngel:
I like them too.
They have quite a lot of interesting foods.
I prefer their foods to Ghana's.

Yup, agreed. Ghana’s more of an open flex but Kenya’s a niche underdog in the Eastern corner that it’s interesting to tap into a little. It’s definitely somewhere I want to visit.

One thing that puts me off Ghanaian food is their over-reliance on tuna fish (and the actual fish when it’s not mashed up, dipped in brine and canned is actually alright, still, don’t get me wrong) and boiled eggs (they’re worse than Yorubas when it comes to that, and as someone who doesn’t like the food that’s a problem). They also experiment with using lots of weird ingredients (cheese, anchovies, you name it) when it comes to jollof rice. Half of them cook it quite normally and Ghana jollof within that parameter is actually really quite alright but the other half make it too weird by adding all sorts of random ingredients that you wouldn’t normally put in the same pot as rice. Ndudu by Fafa is a prime example of how Ghanaian food can range from pinacular West African treasures wrapped in Ashanti mystery to very unorthodox and odd. That particular YouTuber is a great cook and everything but there was a time when she was basically trying to turn jollof into a cheese omelette and at that point I just knew that it was only Ghanaians who are capable of being that weird. At that point, you might as well add mustard and Worcestershire sauce or fill a ploughman’s lunch with a bit of cheesy red rice over-sprinkled with shito pepper. Ghanaians think their rice is onto great things but we all know that most other West African countries besides maybe Ivory Coast and including Cameroon and even Kenya (some Kenya-dem do jollof) do it much better.

I have to admit, I like Kenyans a lot. The country’s quite underrated.

Erm, from the first date.

Angelfrost:
...Not to mention living long enough to escape an average Calabar man's pepper soup pot.

Lol.

IconicR:
Kaduna is ok, you'll enjoy it.

I doubt it.

RedboneSmith:
This might sound bizarre, but Fulani language is actually closer to Yoruba, Edo, Ibibio and Igbo languages than it is to Hausa. This is because it belongs to the same Niger-Congo language family as these languages.

Hausa on the other hand is closer to languages like Somali, Arabic and Hebrew, since they all belong to the same Afro-Asiatic language family.

Fulani being anything like Igbo does sound bizarre.

rottable:
Glad to know. I thought they were imported

Imported from where? Antarctica?

Adrian9:
This same palm oil made people sail thousands of kilometres from Europe to Africa. People killed and exiled great men (like King Jaja of Opobo) because of the control of the trade. Apart from palm oil being used for food,it is a principal ingredient in soaps and lots of cosmetics,it's leaves makes the broom we use in sweeping our houses locally,it's a good source of fibre - every part of this unique plant serves a purpose. WHY CAN'T WE INVEST IN PALM OIL AND LEAVE CRUDE OIL WHICH THE WORLD IS TURNING IT'S BACK ON?

I actually agree.

mariahAngel:
Yes.
No much creativity required in most of their soups, and some of their foods (like ekpan-nkwukwo) are unnecessarily tedious.

And they brag a lot too. 🙄

Mhm, but the thing is they’re meticulous in the way they cook, they use good vegetables (like utazi) and the ratio of tin tomatoes to fresh ones (and the rest) could not be more perfect. Maybe the ones who live in interior Uyo villages don’t do it that well but as someone who’s been in and out of both the U.K. and Nigeria I do feel like they do exceptionally well when it comes to things like that. A typical Yoruba woman wouldn’t be able to get their kind of consistency without elevating the amount of oil even if it would still taste amazing, as it often does, but because Calabar people are meticulous cooks they use the best ratios.

But I agree that their shades of vegetable soup can be a bit repetitive and same-y. They don’t seem to have much variety of swallow either so it doesn’t tend to be mostly garri or pounded yam. When it comes to variety of actual swallow I’d say Igbos, Yorubas and Deltans lead the roost to be fair.

mariahAngel:
Oh peh-lease! 🙄
Their soups are overrated. (Not the nutritionally though)

Just a combination of water leaves, and any other leafy vegetables with proteins and excess palm oil, then give it a different name.

You talking about ndi Ibom-Efik?

Shalommy:
Op, if you talk of Akwa ibom and Cross river, i'll tick you right but addin igbo, Chaii...you're a joker!

It’s natural for every tribe who has anything like a tangible claim to it in some way to say they’re the best at what they do, all tribalistic sentiments even aside, but food’s something you just can’t take away from Igbos and I’m not just saying that because I’m Igbo. Yoruba people are good, often really good, at cooking rice, moi-moi, party food and a select-few other dishes (and none of these are even theirs in the first place) and individual sub-groups (Ekiti, and God knows I love ndu Ekiti, Ilaje, etc.) have more variety than others but you can’t bank on being able to eat egusi soup from them that won’t make your stomach purge like you can with an Igbo or Akwa Ibom person who can cook (Osun, Ondo and Ekiti are the Yoruba states that make good egusi; the others range from nichely mediocre to very bad). There’s no unifying strength when it comes to their soups and stuff like that and that’s where Igbos come in more specifically. Just the way it is.

There was a time I was living with ungrateful, semi-narcissistic bastards (and I mean scum of the Earth) who I still hate with a passion but I still let them eat my food and some of it went down particularly well. Versatile Nsukka-Awka-Nri Igbo hands rarely let mandem starve once they’re past the age of 15. I’m a closed book who doesn’t cook for the world as such but either way I just know I wouldn’t be as good a cook if I wasn’t from the Southeast or have that kind of blood in me.

In a land (S.E.) where between us we have okpa, utazi, onugbu, okazi, ukwa, snails specifically for jollof rice and onugbu soup, okazi/Afang, ofe akwu, catfish pepper soup, edikang-ikong, coconut rice, etc., you’re going to need to have a lot of bases covered to say you’re better. We can all learn from each other but it doesn’t kill to admit certain things. So in my books it really is Calabar and Igbo leading the roost. Urhobo third. But negodu yourself, my friend.

Both Igbos and Akwa Ibom/Calabar people, it goes without saying, are known for being strong contenders for the best overall cooks in Nigeria (although every tribe has its niche, including Yorubas, Hausas, Igalas and Edos) but what are you really having when the utazi-laced cassava/abacha-chips (or Cajun-spiced + utazi-sprinkled French fries coated in wheat and fried in groundnut oil and duck fat in a semi-cast-iron air-fryer, if you will) are down and you need to comfort-eat your way out of a bad break-up, an embarrassment that did not need to happen or a wet Sunday? Is it afang, onugbu, abak atama, Mama-Ekaete’s mangrove-and-beechwood-smoked coconut seafood jollof rice, ukpo-ogede (plantain mai-mai), igba di-oku (Enugu okpa now), isi-ewu or ofe Owere?

What’s it going to be? Team Hilda or team auntie Nkechi?

Quest7777:
Igbo's are the most de-tribalised people in Nigeria.

Well, well, well. Maybe, maybe not.

Too right about vitamin E. It’s an important, overlooked vitamin.

Kollins11:
I can't remember the last time I cooked, it either bitches come around to cook for me OR I'm always visiting different restaurants buying food everyday of my life.

So, Today I decided to do something different by cooking my own meal. I drove to the market to buy necessary ingredients for stew.

Pics 1 & 2:
Ingredients.
Tomatoes ₦1000
Pepper ₦200
Onions ₦300
Tomatoe paste ₦100
Meat ₦1500
Kpomo ₦500
Groundnut oil
Curry & thyme
Maggie knon
Paprika seasoning

Pics 3: boiling the grinded tomatoes and the meats & kpomo for 15mins

Pics 4: frying the tomatoes and adding all the necessary ingredients.

I’m too tired to say anything wittily critical this Sunday morning. You did well.

It can be both. Sometimes jealousy’s off-putting and love Just isn’t enough to sustain a relationship.

Purvan:
Find love in Anambra and work in Enugu .



Anambra man sabi spoil their woman to the core and don't use their woman joke

Marry Anambra man and settle in Enugu


It's like op is shy to drop her pics 😁

Everyone has a right to privacy. You never know who’s reading these forums.

slawomir:
Damnnn niggar
Isoright

It’s alright, o?

Malory:
Man of the people, loved by Nigerians irrespective of tribe and religion.

There’s still a lot of tribalism that prevents people from rating Obi. It should just be their loss but their shenanigans affect the whole country. And God knows there ain’t no-one I hate more than tribalistic Hausas and Yorubas.

It won’t be that. Trust me.

RedboneSmith:
Not exactly sure why I was mentioned here.

And I’m not exactly sure why I wasn’t.

ccffwx:
Spinach is called nchanwu in Igbo.

No. That’s tropical scent leaves (Ocimum gratissimum |clove/wild/African basil). All I know for spinach is that the Indian form is the one most affiliated with Igboland specifically and some people like using all or some of them (alongside curry leaves) in stews, although nchuanwu specifically is more associated with ofe akwu and sometimes plantain porridge than anything. Nchuanwu plant actually has anti-bacterial/food-preservative qualities (like salt) so it could probably keep stew fresh long-term but it’s the opposite for spinach and curry leaves, so you should only add them close to the time of eating the stew and only for people who like leaves in their stew. Some do, some don’t and some feel both ways depending on their mood and how much body they want to give to the stew itself that particular day.

Diego35M:
Tribalism dominate nairaland platform & some Nigeria social media as a whole. But I see Igbo & Yoruba people living together in peace & harmony in real life, why the ethnic slurs online, and why? I think it's more of the recent poltics

It was worse before the recent politics. 2016 was peak tribalism.

NomborPhilip10:
Americans hate Igbos, Americans are working with Tinunu to weaken the Igbos, this is an attack on entire Igbo nation and can't be accepted

Do you honestly think most non-Nigerians give a fig about or even care to differentiate between who’s Igbo or Yoruba? That what you think in your heart of hearts?

Ravenna:
Today is sit at home is SE.

Your papa dey chop koboko.

Youre here ranting

The both of you need to shut up.

carl90:
Ukwa is not a strange food.
It is highly valued among the Igbo people.
It is so precious that it should have its own festival like the Iri Ji festival in Igbo land (New Yam Festival)

Thank you. Moreover, breadfruit (ukwa) is a commonly regarded and sought-for food in the tropical world. Why anyone would senseless themselves to the level of calling it weird or strange just because it doesn’t feature that much in their own sub-cultures is really not the one. It’s like being singled out for audibly KMTing in a space full of people who ain’t going to vibe with your Maggi-d-up mannerisms.