Agbalumo(star apple)

I savoured the creamy goodness of the agbalumo as i sat on the verandah in mild sun

I dragged the seeds to my lingering tongue and sucked on the creamy goodness, i gently closed my eyes in the same ecstasy of a child sucking his mothers breast.

Piquant, from sucking and swooning in all the seeds, i severed the skin to scrape the insides which looked like blood vessels connected around like cobwebs—I ripped its territory apart.

It was the first. Now, i rummaged the kitchen counter for more, washing two more by the sink to peel off the outer dirt. I repeated the same process of eating and swooning and rouphage-eating. 

Later at night, my stomach will churn.

       This was basically what happened whenever I ate agbalumo. But it goes a long way, to my first encounter with this fruit. In primary school, after sports, a woman in the canteen began selling a fruit called star apple which i had never heard or seen before. My friend E, would nudge me when we approached the canteen one sunny afternoon and ask “do you want some? 

No, I said, wondering what was that. 

He goes- it’s strawberry but the Nigerian version.

Now, I loved strawberries though i was disappointed when i first had it, it tasted sour and unsweet, my disappointment filled me with rage. But perhaps here was Nigerian strawberry, everything ‘Nigerian version’ suggested a unique innovation. 

Okay, i said.

When we ate in class that day, i was stunned. At first it tasted mildly sweet, till i sucked on the seeds so creamy that i was suspended in the moment, unaware of any thing else. After throwing away the barely sucked seeds, E would query me for not eating off the chaff. Next, i made sure to eat off the milk-thread chaff, already thinking of buying another tomorrow and if possible a basket.

     Once, at a break from a maths class activity, the teacher had gone out and my friend Favour was chewing her mouth. I thought it was gum but no, she told me it wasn’t. It was infact from Agbalumo. I stared at her, in naivety.

“You don’t know Agbalumo” she worried.

Then, she brought it out from her bag and I recognized quickly

“Woah!

“you’ve got the good stuff” I said, like something a character in Bondocks would say, as I was that child diseased by cartoon obsession,

“Ain’t this nigerian strawberry”, i added

A chuckle. An impressed chuckle. Her face shone with the reflection of her bewildered thought(wondering whose this funny, witty and naughty boy, Nigerian strawberry, really?)

She told me to chew the roughage with one side of my cheek continuously till it turns so soft and then later becomes hard. That was how i learnt how to make chewing gum from the fruit. 

Since then, years would stretch by and that habit will never leave. Anytime i buy them, i not only remember my primary school days of tiny wonders but also revel in the sweetness of Nigerian strawberry. 

Oranges 

Orange would always remain my favourite fruit. It’s ease of consumption, how the juice slaps with a citrusy sweet prickly feel. Growing up, I loved eating oranges that fell from the tree of the neighbours stretched accross our compound. I would pick up a long pipe that could pass for a stick, one reserved from one of the many plumbing operations and push a fruit off its branches so it fell on the floor. I would go on again and again till i nearly fill my basket. My cousin, Sisi who lived with us, would help me peel them. Gosh! don’t get me started on how she rounds the knife and peels so cleanly leaving fine yellow lines on the small ball. It made me wonder, if she has once hawked and sold oranges in her life. Well, my next move would be to sit outside in the verandah in and suck the oranges, filling my body with liquid.    

    One day, my aunt who joked often and spoke french with funny gestures told me with her heads lowered, and a sad grimace on her face—“you shouldn’t be eating too much of that because if you swallow the seed it would grow on your head”. A pause. A great fear. A newness was probbing inside me. I began to eat cautiously, no longer the wild eating of a forest monger, shaggy-haired powered for eternal replenishment but one who knew there were implications.

It wasn’t until i grew older that i learned that all that were lies. Now, even in my university age, whenever i visit malls, like SPAR Calabar i never forget to fill half of my cart with oranges. I would eat it when i get home or at midnight, when that well known hunger haunts and taunts till my mind goes gaunts!

Fried rice, coleslaw and chicken 

One of my favourite memories from childhood is during christmas. When mother would make fried rice, so juicy and buttery it complements the coleslaw. It was the only time mother made fried rice, and it made me very happy, very excited looking forward to christmas. On that day, i awoke to the sweet aroma of fried chicken wafting from the grill, the smell of spices simmering, the sounds of bottles uncorked, vegetables cut, plates removed from the counter, such that i lingered around the kitchen, waiting for the summons. 

ALBERTO! mum would call out. Mine was the fattest, biggest dish, because she knew, pulling my cheeks politely how much i loved this meal. She would yank my ears off when she catches me trying to steal chicken from the colander bowl and smile in that, all-knowing motherly smile of one who has mastered the many crafts of her children. 

I still love fried rice, not the ones served in restaurants that taste bland and sour and devoid of love, but the one from mama’s cooking pot.

Akara and bread

  Nothing better than stopping by the roadside in the morning to buy hot bean cake. By the side, you could see a giant bowl of well-stirred  reddish dough, scooped and fried in oil. Fashioned by hurried hands because rows and rows of customers appear enticed by the taste of just yesterday’s sale. I usually prefer to have mine with soft Agege bread though some would rather Pap. It was because of the aesthetics of stuffing lots and lots of Akara in between the bread as soft as wool. My friends would jokingly call it Nigerian burger—as if everything had to have a Nigerian version. 

And yes, it tastes like burger, just the perfect marriage, the perfect combo best peaked with chilled coke. Revelling in the beauty of authentic Nigerianess.

Rice and stew

In almost every Nigerian home, this is a generic meal. Perhaps because of its easy, non-strenuous preparation and health benefits too. But for me, it was the perfect taste that came with white rice mixed with hot and spicy tomato stews. They go well with finely chopped bananas and cucumber slices, bordering pieces of stew-encased chevron.

And sometimes, i peak it all with a glass of Chivita exotic, delicately unearthed from the fridge. 

Cake(chocolate cake)

Oh cake! cake is definitely not the desert to eat outside, for i will just fail to maintain the ethics and etiquettes of savior-faire. 

Cake, particularly chocolate cake with chocolate cream tastes like sex—velvet fruit, exquisite square numbing me in orgasms with its rich attentions.

And because, i always embarass myself when eating chocolate cake out, i would order foil cakes everyday from my favourite cake plug, have them delivered and eat till i feel so full, like a stuffed doll. Licking my fingers and closing my eyes, unabashed in delight. Strange, how love could otherwise drive you crazy. Enough chatter! bake me a chocolate cake and i    have fallen in love.