Pepperfruit Lovers Of The World, Unite!

By Sonala Olumhense

(Special to NVS )

We all know how travel plays havoc with our emotions once we are separated from the people we love.  We yearn for them. 

We hear their laughter in the wind.  We see their faces in our dreams.  We smile at their jokes in odd places.  Sometimes, we are kept going only by the energy and the reminders of those we love.  Our yearning doubles as hope.  And hope is a very powerful force.

But we are not made up only of people.  We are also a by-product of things, our things.  And time. 

First of all, time: consider how we tend to think that our youth, for instance, was the best?  That our time in an event or place was special?  We eulogize “those days” even when there is some evidence that they are inferior to the present.  Sometimes, we are brave enough to understand that it is not “those days”, it is us. 

And things: Until fairly recently, there were those of us who ate pounded yam only when we travelled back home after a long time away.  Let me rephrase that: people who, having travelled abroad, never tasted pounded yam again until they returned to the country. 

In other words, for years that always felt longer than the Roman calendar, they did not even smell “the dish”.

I am not talking about casual pounded yam eaters.  I am talking about those for whom it formed the only genuine meal in the first place; people who were raised on it, and who considered it king of all meals. 

Tales have been told of such champion pounded yam patrons who ventured abroad on what became extended adventures.  People who could afford, and did enjoy the most delicious and delicate dishes in their new or adopted cultures.  People who loved and married foreigners and became fully absorbed in their ways of life.

Sometimes, being successful abroad requires relearning life, or relearning yourself.  People give up whom they used to be and completely accept their new environment.  That is how some of those funny accents come about, but we will get to that upon another occasion. 

The fascinating thing is that I have never known anyone who gave up pounded yam.  For some reason, the man who seemed for two decades in a Milanese restaurant to have become more Italian than the locals arrives in Makurdi, Uromi or Akure and eats pounded yam three times a day, and perhaps four times on the day they have to drag him to the airport to catch his return flight.

 Tales have been told of palm wine drinkers who temporarily return to the country and then go berserk as they jump from one palm wine spot to another.  People who spend their first evening, and every evening until the airline is making its final boarding announcement, at a suya spot or an isiewu restaurant. 

It is all about the things we are, the things we love.  It is about those things that, like people, are unavailable in our new life, the denials that compel us to make peace with our reality.  It is about the desires that we suppress.

Of my own personal delights, I was the dancing recipient, recently, of some supplies of pepperfruit, the spicy fruit that I grew to love as a kid.  It had been a while, but I did not really realize how much I had missed them.

Some people eat these things as a treat.  I wish I were that strong: when they are available, I eat them as a matter of course.  I am speaking about the main course.  I can attack them for hours, ignoring real food. 

 As I grew older, I learned how to make what is basically a seasonal production last all year.  The trick was to eat only the green ones.  The ripe ones were then de-seeded, and the harvest saved and dried in the sun.  Saved in small packs, and brought out when it was well out of season and the company was right, that is what is called a treat. 

You could go further and become an aficionado.  I learned that pepperfruit, washed down delicately with certain beverages, was how a man became a king, or at least a chief.  (Now you know why I do not have much respect for those chieftaincy titles: I knew how to be a king before kings began to manufacture the titles for general commerce!)

But anyway.  So someone brought me a helping of pepperfruit, years after I had rested even one seed on my tongue.

If you are old enough to remember episodes of the “Village Headmaster”, you remember how dignified the palace of the Oba was.  But did you notice how, once in a while, the Oloja of Oja, Oba Ajelende (Dejumo Lewis) would execute one or two remarkable dance steps?

An Oba never dances for anybody.  But nobody is superior to dance, which is often borne of music.  When the spirit seized him, the Oba would shuffle forward a couple of steps for himself in front of the throne, and then backwards.  (He never shuffled sideways, and I wonder why).

But it was always a rhythmic and sublime moment, followed by his big smile as he returned to his royal seat.

One pepperfruit on my tongue, recently, was all it took.  One bite. That evocative aroma as the fiery peppermint flavor woke up my taste buds individually and lit up my insides like a Christmas tree with a NEPA licence.

I was Oba Ajelende, right there, rising from the luxury of the throne and lifting the royal fan.  A slight bending-forward of my royal frame.  I shifted my right foot forward, and then my left.  I shuffled backwards regally, and let out an excited roar. 

Did I say Oba Ajelende never danced for long?  Perhaps, and it was good to watch him keep it brief.  But then, I never saw him eat any pepperfruit after what seemed to be a lifetime away from its magic. 

So I did not sit down.  I have not sat down.  As long as my tongue dances in my mouth, so will these loyal feet.

·        sonala.olumhense@gmail.com

Robot  Villager

# 1 Pepperfruit Lovers Of The World, Unite! By Sonala Olumhense ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 08.05.2008 23:09

mushu  Villager

# 2 Whats this all about? Posted by mushu| 09.05.2008 13:57