My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora

Raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Yewande Kemolafe is a formally trained former restaurant cook who celebrates here a week of cooking and eating in Africa’s largest city.

The city, she stresses, is ever-evolving, its boundaries fluid, its streets literal crossroads for influences from across the continent and around the world. That said, she points out key ingredients in most Nigerian food; some, like ginger and chiles, are probably familiar to most cooks, while others, like smoked catfish and efirin, or scent leaf, may require finding a specialty grocer.

Kemolafe is careful to explain all that she can. One dish can only be made with short-grained rice because of its more glutinous texture. The trick to a successful fish stew with dumplings is to stop stirring as soon as the fish is added.  A dish called frejon, made from beans pureed with coconut milk, is believed to have been brought to Lagos by formerly enslaved people returning from Brazil.

Some shopping effort will be required to make the very most this book, but it offers many temptations.

Hardcover. Color photos throughout.