Celebrating Cultural Identity Through Food: Your Food, Your Heritage

Over the years, and by reason of being privileged to live in a couple of places, I have come to understand that food is beyond the substances that made it up, it can be a reflection of history, culture and identity. Trust me, there are places within the country that you will go to, you will be met with a particular unique cuisine that only those people cook or that is remarkable with them. I once went to the South-west; the Yoruba area - Lagos in particular, for an event, and I was served with their local cuisine - Amala with Ewedu and Gbegiri and Abula. The person I was with, being a Yoruba person, looked at me, smiled, and told me, "welcome to Lagos, this is part of what makes us Yoruba." For him, the food was not just to quench hunger, but it was a reflection of their cultural heritage. Just to let you know, food tells more about a people than a lot of other things.

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A friend once referred to food as "cultural heritage on a plate." There are some traditions that have been passed on from one generation through another as it relates to food. In the South-eastern part of the country, among the Igbos, during traditional events, there are some foods that are expected to be cooked to grace the occasion. For example, the people from Enugu are known for Abacha, Agbugbu, Okpa, while some part of Anambra are known for pounded yam with nsala soup or onugbo soup. All these are cultural heritage. Imagine if you go to an Igbo festival, maybe a traditional marriage and you are not served the local traditional cuisine, you will see it as a cultural aberration.

Every culture has its own unique cuisine, which can be shaped by history, social norms, tradition, climate, and geography. More often than not, it is not just about the ingredients that make up the food, but how the food is crafted. You can give two people from different regions of the country (maybe Yoruba and Hausa) the same ingredients and they will cook two entirely different foods with them; to show that food is not just about the substances that make it up but it has a lot to do with culture. I once read someone that Sushi is predominant among the Japanese because it is also part of their cultural heritage and it shows simplicity, harmony, craftsmanship and precision.

It is worthy to note that food also has power to unite people. Of course, sharing meal together can unite and bring people together irrespective of their background and ethnicity. I have been to a couple of food festivals from many regions and I can say that there is unity in sharing a plate of food. When I was in the Northern part of the country, I was privileged to follow a friend to a festival and we were served the local cuisine. Adorably, a lot of people from other tribes were also there, but I noticed that everyone seemed united and shared things in common. The happiness in the faces of the attendees was something remarkable and adorable. This is when I realized that food can also unite people.

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You cannot comfortably say that you have learnt the culture of a people if you have not learnt about their food. This is because culture is their way of living, which food forms an integral part of it. When I was in junior secondary school many years back, I remember in one of the social studies classes, we were taught about culture and its elements. Among the elements of culture is food, which shows how important it is. With the modernity that is fast spreading, it is sad that a lot of people have lost touch of their cultural heritage. You will be surprised that some people do not even know which cuisines that are remarkable with their tribe. This shows that we need to start to preserve our cultural heritage and our food.

When I was much younger and when we normally travelled to the village to spend the vacation period with our grandparents, I used to watch my grandma cook local cuisine and even helped her out in the kitchen, and this helped me a lot to learn how to cook a lot of traditional cultural foods, and I have also passed the knowledge on to a couple of other people. This is part of the ways to preserve the culture of a people as it relates to food. Always have in mind that food is not just about what you eat, but also the meaning you attach to it.

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