Memroies In Scent And Taste

 What makes us feel truly at home? Is it familiar sights from our childhood? The smell of hebs grwoing int eh family garden? Or the tastes of our vountry and heritage. For some it's all three. Mostly though it's the cooking  that welcomes us back.

Regular contributor and chef Yewande Komolafe pondered this as she wrote about going home in today New Yorks Times Wednesday Food section.  The article is take from her cookbook "My Everyday Lagos; NIgerian Cooking At Home and in the Diaspora" (Ten Speed Press 2023). She is from Lagos , Nigeria, the country's capital,  her parents home is in the countryside. Nigerians are rediscovering and questioning their pre colonial past. Some do it in activism, Some in the arts. Chef Komolafe explores her Nigerian heritage through her cooking which is art itself. She gives three recipes which are a blend of her life in America and family ones. Anyone - Nigerian or not can make these and taste centuries of cooking and spicing. Keep in mind that if you buy the cookbook, she cautions against being burdens by the notion of authenticity.The bukas or relaxed  Nigerian based restaurants thoughout the world have their own verion of these dishes. The home chef should too.

Chef Komolafe includes a shakshura type of breakfast dish  -  jammy tomato breakfast eggs. it may not have the exact flavor  of shashuka but it is fragrant with oregano, chives mint and basil. Tomatos , onions and Scotch bonnet peppers are sauted with oil and smashed red peppers.It's garnished with sunnyside up eggs. Another recipe included is her mother's iwuk idesi or one por rice with chicken .Again Scotch bonnet peppers are used here in a pepper paste along with whole crayfish or dried shrimp. This is added to a braised chicken along withginger garlic and chicken stock. Long grained rice is cooked with it for a flavorful bite. She also has akara, tasty bean fritters. These are made with ewa olyin or black eyed peas soaked and peeled. {although you cna use bean powder. There's also garlic cloves , onions and Scotch bonnets again for fire and bite.These can be fried in red palm oil  and if that can;t be found use peanut oil. The mix should resemble whipped hummus before it's fried into crispy fritters.

OUr heritage and our cooking shaping. None is more evident in Chef KOmolafe's recipes. Like herself they are traditional but also reinvented for a table outside Nigeria.