The Nigerian Dining Table that Disappeared Into Thin Air
by Yemisi Aribisala
One of the most enduring myths on the Nigerian Femme Fatale; mammy-water, winch or husband-snatcher has to do with the cooking of fish stew. It is a simple recipe; one serving Capsicum peppers (tatase) with two servings of tomatoes, one or two small purple onions and a few chili peppers, depending on the eater's tolerance for heat.
Myth of fish cuisine and sexual attraction by Yemisi Ogbe, 234Next, 10 February 2009
The table was really a metaphorical gathering around my weekly blogs on food and culture for the Nigerian newspaper 234Next, published from 2009 to 2011. These were no ordinary diners holding forth; my guests came in all shades of wickedly witty, disdainful, and plain abusive, declaring inextinguishable love in the same breath as reviling me for refusing to cook with stock cubes. They were fugitives, fanatics, high-powered civil servants, and second-generation cocoa farmers, disenchanted diasporans, taking no prisoners in their criticisms, and masquerading behind screen names like Truck Pusher, Moon-Walker, Adonisgold, Tata, Hearsay, Jerry Rawlings etc. They spewed the contents of their minds and the bile from their bellies freely, without restraint or fear of recognition.
Before 2009, food writing had been culturally insignificant—all but non-existent—in Nigerian media. Such a table as ours had never existed, because 234Next did all kinds of things and spoke on all kinds of matters as no Nigerian newspaper had ever done before. There had been recipe sections in some newspapers, but food as a lens through which to see and think about culture had not been deemed newsworthy; no one had thought such cultural criticism worth serving to Nigerians before 234Next set the table.
It was later rumored that 234Next folded in 2011 because of the same nonconformity that had glorified it from the start. More specifically, the political criticism contained in its pages had chaffed the moneybags that funded the paper that folded the paper.
After the paper was shuttered, access to the table was at an end. Dele Olojede, the Pulitzer prizewinning publisher of 234Next, pulled the newspaper and all its archives offline with no warning. The paper’s demise caused shock and heartbreak for the brilliant, eager writers and artists who had contributed for years, never imagining that their collected reportage, art, musings, and political defiance would evaporate without a trace. To this day there is no Nigerian newspaper like it.
Keep us breathing fire!
For $3/month you can read this whole post and get our weekdaily newsletter too!