ktravula – a travelogue!

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My Bite Christmas

I spent Christmas day on the road to many places. In each of the places were food, drinks, gifts, people and nice conversations. Thousands of kilometres away from home, I was once again relishing the pleasures of American hospitality. At some point in the evening, expecting a profound answer, I asked the guests at the table what the most traditional American meal was. The answer was: The hamburger. I was surprised. I always thought that that belonged to the Germans.

There’s a long history behind the nation’s diet, all traceable to immigration. The New England Pilgrims brought and eventually grew wheat bread, with turkey and pheasants made into sausages, stews, pies and pastries. The Native Americans ate crabs and salmon among many other sea animals, Italian settlers came with their pasta and some seafood diet, the Spanish brought lamb, the Africans brought pork, the cornbread, and meals made out of potatoes and sweet potatoes, among others. Years after, what we have is a country whose gastronomical map is as diverse as its accents.

The diversity is not always a thing of joy for those from where the food originally came, however. None of my Indian friends ever like foods served in “Indian” restaurants in America. The burritos sold at Taco bell are hardly as authentically Mexican as the ones in Cuernavaca. Poundo yam sold in plastic bags don’t taste like the pounded yam sold at Mama Ope in Bodija, and neither are fortune cookies anymore Chinese than French fries are from France. All the food that cross the Atlantic inevitably lose their old self, and like the people themselves, evolve, sometimes becoming better, and sometimes not, but mostly always remaining delightful. Americana.

And so my Christmas dinner consisted of lots of lamb, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, asparagus, salmon, capers, salad, bread, corn, chicken, carrots, cakes and perhaps more than I can now presently remember. One major absence however was any sausages, or hamburgers. I guess it’s not so traditional after all. As fast food, yes, but one wouldn’t expect to find them on a table set for a Christmas gathering? No. Yet, I became curious as to how a four inch roasted meat lying in-between two slices of bread (no entendres) came to acquire such fame across the world (and among Americans themselves) as America’s national food.

Away from this all however is my delight in the diversity that made the country what it is. Much like home faraway in Ibadan, the day ended as a thankful tribute to the warmth of friendships and human connection, and the significance of such a wonderful holiday.

A Review

No, not of a book, movie or song although that would be fun, but of the year itself. Yes it’s too early to do that since we still have about nine days to go, but it is amazing to see how close we are already to its end. By this time last year, I was here, same spot, same posture, probably complaining of snow or making a general observation of a particularly fascinating endeavour. The only difference is that then I was a teacher of many young students of Yoruba, but now I’m mostly a student myself. (Speaking of reviews, I’d appreciate you taking a moment to tell me what your favourite posts on this blog has been. There’s a poll on the right side of the blog. Please choose as many options as appeal to you).

I miss teaching in the Yoruba class. It was one of those moments when everything stands still and a continuous flow of knowledge and fun merges into one beautiful experience that lasts for about one and a half hours, two times a week. It’s incomparable, not just because of the things learnt and taught but for the pleasure of being there, and being the vessel for such cultural exchange. I met a few students this semester who said that they registered for the class either because they attended my talk last year or had heard from other students, and wanted to experience the class for themselves. I am thinking of returning to teach that class next semester. What do you think?

I’ve posted less on this blog per month since August, deliberately, and I think that has worked well. I realized at the end of the first blog year that it was better to write whenever I could rather than make posts everyday as I used to when I had all the time on my hands. It was inevitable that graduate school will attempt to suck me dry of all my waking moments. But then, here we are, still talking, and still sharing little moments of laughter. My semester has been made even better to bear by the presence of lovely colleagues who bring me chocolates and other nice stuff (you know yourselves), and those with whom I share nice stimulating conversation somewhere amidst the bustle of the day. There is also the doting host parents who have treated me no different than their own son with free access to their home, their food and their wine. What else could one ask for?

This year I travelled around (some parts of) Nigeria, and that was fun. I hope to complete my tour of that country in a not too distant future. I also got to see a few more of the midwestern United States. A few people have suggested that I should travel with a more critical eye next time (instead of my usually fawning admiration of spaces, I guess). In my defense, I have gone around less with the intention of understanding the people in the places I go and more with the intention of understanding and describing the places in which they live. But now that I know the difference, maybe I should take one more step closer. (You might like this article about the BBC reporter who attempted to understand and describe Americans in a new book). Maybe it is the desire to take pictures and write about places that moves me the most.

When the year ends next week, what I’ll be most grateful for is the general beautiful pleasure of warm human company. There’s still no alternative to that yet.

Glad for the Holidays

America is such a fast society; busy people talking on mobile phones, travellers in big cities with heavy backpacks and briefcases, racing cars on motorways and a 24 hour news cycle. One almost can’t keep up. I remember the feeling on the first day of my return to this town, wondering just how different it all seemed again. It took me a few days to get back in the grind. Things never seem to wait. It all goes by so fast, and one is left wondering where all the day went. More than thirteen weeks later, it feels good to take a breather. What a ride that was.

The awesome gift my Amigo Secreto gave to me last week. It's an awesome reminder of what I must do instead of being stressed out with work.

Last week at our final office lunch, I was talking with a colleague – an elderly professor originally from Italy. How does he like it here? I ask. Oh no, I don’t much, he replied. If he hadn’t left his country after the World War when it was both fashionable and imperative to do so, he would still be living there, he said. “It’s the people, the culture, the food, the company. Most importantly, the relaxing ability of people to enjoy life.”

There is something about America that is both endearing and sometimes frustrating at the same time, I think. It is the system that makes working the centre of existence, and leisure something you never do unless you’re dead. On the one hand, it is endearing to see how much you can achieve if you work hard for it, on the other hand it is frustrating to see how hard it is to enjoy the fruits of your labour if you only spend all your time working. The delight is in the balance. I wonder if the country has a retirement age.

In any case, I’m glad for a break from school work that sometimes threatened my sanity. Without the occasional comfort of delightful classmates and a couple of courses that one really loves, it could have been harder. Now all I do is stay up in bed for as long as I want, and wake up whenever I want. Watch a movie, listen to music, and get back to just being lazy. Yesterday, I saw the eclipse of the moon. Christmas is in a couple of days and I don’t even know it. Back home, it would already have been a bustle of fun activities including Christmas fireworks and the dry smell of burning grass that characterizes the harmattan season. Oh well, one can’t have it all.

On the bright side, all the snow from the United States has now been shipped to Canada and Britain. There are a few more warm days ahead.

All I Want for Christmas

I’m not so modest as to request for only warm hugs and pleasant night kisses for Christmas as that old song goes (All I Want for Christmas is You). No, I’m a selfish guy. From window-shopping at Apple stores and browsing through unsolicited brochures sent to my mailbox by advertising geek shops, I have decided that I do want myself some new gadgets. This, blog readers, is my Christmas wishlist.

A phone is already out of it. A few days ago, Nokia sent me this new C3 phone they had promised me since summer. It is a nice gadget filled with new functions. It is really stepping up its game to compete with the Blackberry. But I don’t care for that. The fact that I can just pull it open and put my SIM card in it without any hassles is one my its best features. Then there is the Nokia chat messenger through which you can communicate with users of the same phone across distances. In any case, one more phone can’t hurt, and I already have it, so a phone is out.

iPod/iPad. To tell you the truth, I’m not much of an Apple fan, but one thing you can’t take away from them is their craftsmanship. They make products so alluring that one would almost forget any other drawbacks (which include exclusivity, non-flash capability, and cost) and plunge directly into buying. I already have an iPod Classic and it’s one of the best companions when computers are far away. All I have seen of iPads have convinced me that they will be excellent companions. Maybe I can finally throw away this old Dell and move into the 21st century. Now that would be a great gift to receive, not only because it would be like giving a library of books as well. No, I don’t want a Kindle. I like to admire it from afar.

A new car radio. Now I’ve never seen so many radio stations in my life. There are about 10,000 commercial and about 2500 non-commercial radio stations in the US alone. Illinois and Missouri have about 500, if not more, of all of those. Of that are my favourites: NPR (the National Public Radio which also becomes the BBC at night), KEZK (Soft Rock 102.5), Rewind 1033 (which plays 70s and 80s hits alone). And last week after my car recovered from battery loss, my old car radio reconfigured itself and is now playing a station called 180Y or something like that, codename: “Today’s music”. The fact is that without the radio road trips would be incredibly depressing. My car radio right now however, is as good as broken.

A super camera. It seems surreal yet appreciable that a little Canon camera could have taken so many nice shots in its short life span. A few months ago however, I dropped the little fucker on the ground by mistake and its display view went bonkers. For many weeks, I felt like a blind man walking with a service dog. The camera itself worked, but I had to put it to my eye (oh so consciously) in order to see what I was about to shoot. It didn’t just reduce the quality of the shots because of the loss of a preview opportunity, it also made it hard to take spontaneous or clandestine shots. Now yesterday, I dropped the camera again, by mistake. This time the display came back on, which goes to say that there is a solution within every problem. It has also however reminded me that I need a new, this time professional, camera.

So, there it is Santa: my techno wishlist. Not much, just an iPad, a supertech camera and/or a car radio. But if you think that all I deserve is nothing but a good old Amazon gift card or a stack of new books by brilliant writers, I would take that too, with thanks. It’s your call after all.

Thanks to Clarissa, I have made my Amazon wishlist which include a few favourite books. Yay! Now Santa, where are you? Make me happy this Christmas. I’ve been a good boy.

The Pleasure of Swallowing

In the heart of the gastronomical art of the people south of the Sahara is the delight of swallowing. Around mounds of hot dough made out of yam, or rice, or potatoes, or corn, or even millet, bowls of soup lay spread on a mat in the middle of a salivating family. Dinner time is more than just the conversation that lubricates the passing of each balls of dough through the oesophagus into the waiting bellies, it is an appreciation of the craft behind the cooking, and the process of eating. Feeding is an art in itself. I see it now: bowls of pounded yam along with egusi soup, hot plates of amala on which ewedu and gbegiri compete for dominance, and all around the plate surrounding small reefs of fried beef. It is the pleasure to behold, and the pleasure to hold on the tongue before the final swallowing.

So a friend from Jamaica had encountered pounded yam for the very first time, and looked bewildered at the suggestion that each handful of a rounded ball of the dough already coated in soup had to be swallowed in entirety. “This is too large for my throat,” she said. I took another look at pounded yam today and discovered that she was right. Contrary to the suggestion that all you do is throw the ball of food in your mouth and swallow it, the process before the swallowing is actually a little more complicated. It starts with a swirling on the tongue of the food in order to separate what’s “food” and what’s “sauce”. A little teeth-work takes place afterwards to press whatever is necessary into the right shape for the throat. Everything else follows.

It is safer to say that whenever you get a delightful ball of Yoruba food (be it pounded yam, amala or semo) into your mouth along with accompanying spiced vegetables, you may just trust your tongue and teeth to sort out the rest of the job. It goes into the mouth as a ball of dough, but eventually relaxes into something smoother before a delightful passage into the warm embrace of the gut. The pleasure, eventually, is in the eating. Here therefore is a salute not just to the art of cooking and the long history of efforts behind it, but also to those who revel in its delightful consumption, especially across cultural lines. Feeding, after all is an artful exercise. (In other words, you could just say that I do terribly miss my pounded yam.)

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