Greetings People!馃檶
I experienced my first time living alone in 2012 when I travelled to a faraway state to write an exam. Before leaving, I was well-stocked with foodstuffs like beans, rice, garri, red oil, and others because it's a month's stay.
Just two weeks into my stay, my garri got exhausted, leaving me to feed on rice and beans only. The worst thing is that I wasn't given enough money due to the fact that I had enough food.
I decided to sacrificially survive with just the rice and beans, but hey, I couldn't exceed three days without eating "swallow" (garri), so I had to use my remaining money to buy garri in order to save my body system because it was more like it was dying.
That's it; I can't live without swallow.
Swallow here comprises of Eba (baked cassava flake), pounded yam, fufu. I should have added the likes of Amala and Starch, but they're not my thing at all.
Swallow comes with soup, and any common soup is okay for me, apart from the ones I haven't tasted once.
Eba
I was brought up with this as a regular meal because it's common and due to the fact that we have cassava farms.
While other families are taking tea and bread for breakfast, this is what we use for breakfast because it holds the stomach firm enough to withstand the hit of farm work.
My body system got accustomed to this culture from home, and it's been with me till today. Whenever I take any food that's not swallow, especially breakfast, I'll pass it out within 1 hour.
The eba goes well with all manners of soup such asEgusi, Okro, Banga, etc.
Fufu
This one has an alias, which is "6 to 6". This literally means from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
This type of swallow has a very good long span of holding the stomach firm. When taken, it can last from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., hence the nickname "6 to 6"
The favourite soup I go with the fufu is either egusi or banga soup.
Pounded Yam
Till today, my family at home still does crop farming, and yam is among them and we don't fancy eating just yam like that...maybe that's because we have it in excess. The only means of eating yam that freaks us out is making it into pounded yam and eating it with any soup, especially what we commonly refer as pepper soup
It's more like a ritual in our home to eat pounded yam with pepper soup in the morning of any festive days like Christmas and New Year.
With all these, I became very fond of this pounded yam, and whenever I go to a restaurant and see it being sold, I can't skip it.
With the way I love swallow, I see it as a taboo to go to a restaurant to eat rice. No way! If it's not swallow, I'm not eating 馃槄
Thank you for reading.
This is in response to HiveGhana's prompt.
