FIVE BOOKS TO AWAKEN YOUR PALATE IN 2020

I  am a foodie and I am frontal about it. I love good food and would occasionally experiment. I love surprising flavours like salted caramel or the taste of a teacup of vanilla tea. I love my salads with shaved almond and strips of peppered chicken. I love my green peppers with fillings of sardine and a mild touch of vinegar.

I love my moi-moi with nine lives, fish shrimps and egg embedded, add this to my amala and gbegiri and my agidi and fisherman okro. I always revel in my beans and corn Jollof and a platter of peppered gizzard or chips embedded in a full roast peppered catfish.

Okay, so now you know. I am truly a foodie and I also love to entertain from time to time. This is all thanks to my mum, the lovely Mrs Joseph Ine Amodu and her mum, my grandmother Madam Mariamo Lawal, women who could cook up a storm. Generous and hospitable, they taught me how to cook while letting me know that feeding people is different from giving money. Feeding strangers, family, workers and one’s community is a blessing. It yields many rewards but more importantly, it creates happiness.

Food is community and I have held on to that mantra.

Today I bring you books to awaken your palate, lead you to the kitchen and give you a reason to improve your culinary skills. Cooking is cathartic. Let your 2020 cooking timetable begin.

1. One of my favourite books of all times on cooking is Maya Angelou ‘s book Hallelujah! the welcome table. An inedible cookbook after my heart. This Poet and Essayist brings you her favourite recipes and ties them to family moments and friendship hangouts.

2. Any book you find regarding a grandmother’s cooking is never a miss. Grandma’s are the best cooks in the world. They can stew toothpicks and make them delicious.

3. Chilean American writer Isabelle Allende’s Aphrodite has to be one of the most hilarious food/ memoir books I have ever read. Fully well researched with tales from her own life to stories of food and romance, it’s unputdownable and oh, so funny. It also has a section full-on with recipes from her mother’s cooking. A tribute to her mum.
When I finally write my long-awaited cookbook, I will borrow this brilliant idea and put some of my mother’s cooking tricks and recipes in it.

4. Long throat Memoirs, soups, sex and Nigerian taste buds by Yemisi Aribisala. So yeah. She got it right. Nigerian taste buds are unique. From ewa agonyi to palm oil Nigerian stew and orisirisi as well as dodo for life, Yemisi a food blogger put Nigerian food on the international scene with this amazing book.
It comes with the hilarity of Nigerian wedding parties, family meetings and the place of Nigerian food in our lives. A truly good read.

5. Long throat Memoirs, soups, sex and Nigerian taste buds by Yemisi Aribisala. So yeah. She got it right. Nigerian taste buds are unique. From ewa agonyi to palm oil Nigerian stew and orisirisi as well as dodo for life, Yemisi a food blogger put Nigerian food on the international scene with this amazing book.
It comes with the hilarity of Nigerian wedding parties, family meetings and the place of Nigerian food in our lives. A truly good read.

BONUS BOOKS: Any book on Arabian cooking is a bonus. Arabian flavours are to die for. Any book on Thai cooking. Any book on Japanese cooking… Sushi and all.
Open your mind this year. Get into the flavours. Watch those you invite to taste your cooking celebrate you.