Egusi Soup

Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?

Spicy, warm soups are delightful for me.

Food is culture. Food is life, and I can go on dropping poetic lines about food. As a traditional person, I am a foodie who appreciates good food! I love traditional Igbo dishes like egusi, ede, ogbono, uha, and onugbu. Growing up, I learned to cook because I visit the kitchen often to keep my mom, aunties, and sister company or get extra pieces of food, haha.

Egusi soup is made of melon seeds native to Igbo land. The seeds are ground into a fine paste and then cooked with other ingredients. It is then served with gari, fufu, or akpu—all made from yams or cassava. During any festivity or holiday, this dish, alongside different soups and meals, is cooked.

An Igbo adage goes thus: Agadi nwanyi anaghi aka n’egwu omara agba—An older woman does not age on her dance steps. Although I haven’t been cooking for a while, I still remember most recipes, and I can do them with ease. Last summer, during fieldwork in Nigeria, I had some of these meals. Now, back in America, I’m fortunate to have a Nigerian restaurant in the next town that offers the egusi dish. 😋

Discover more from Oke’s Musings: Poetry, People and Places

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

44 comments

  3. Pingback: Peter Heveron

  4. We make pasta and garlic bread…a simple but old staple. Can’t ever go wrong with it!! If you could, please subscribe to our blog to stay up to date with organized, informative knowledge which can be applied to reality

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  5. Hello

    I’ve been thoroughly enjoying your posts and the knowledge you share here. It’s evident that a lot of effort goes into your content and it’s been incredibly informative and insightful. I’ve subscribed to your blog to make sure I don’t miss out on your future updates.

    Also, I noticed you have some advertisements on your site and I made sure to click through as a token of my appreciation for your work.

    Keep up the great work!

    Like

    Reply

  10. This sounds like such an interesting dish. Honestly, I haven’t heard of any of the dishes mentioned in here. It’s cool to see such a cultural difference; I love how many diverse foods there are across the world

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to houseofchazdesk Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Oke’s Musings: Poetry, People and Places

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading