How to Cook African Literary Food | Ben Okri and The Magic of Pepper Soup

So much of the magic in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road revolves around pepper soup—a dish universally loved by everyone in the novel, whether man or woman, ghost or prehistoric creature.

Some of the most important scenes in the novel take place in Madame Koto’s bar. Fans of Okri’s classic know Madame Koto’s bar as an underworld where men and ghosts alike come to find solace and pleasure in bowl after bowl of pepper soup, washed down with palmwine.

Whereas the world of Okri’s novel is fictional, pepper soup is not. It is an authentic Nigerian “drinking soup” consisting of meat cooked in a light broth infused with aromatic spices. Pepper soup is eaten steaming hot and engulfs the palate in a peppery flame.

In a novel where life is lived in surreal intensity, it is hardly surprising that pepper soup would be the culinary mainstay.

If you’ve tasted pepper soup, you’d agree with me that it is beyond delicious.

But, as Okri is known to have said while having lunch with a journalist, pepper soup also “enhances the appetite, expands the tastebuds, opens up the desire channels, cleanses the blood, inflames the eyes.”

In today’s post, we invite you to step out of Okri’s fictional world and live the magic of pepper soup in your kitchen.

Here is an easy recipe we found in a lovely little blog called kitchenbutterfly.com.

Bon appetit!

Ingredients: 

 

1.25kg of ‘soup’ (hard) chicken or goat meat, cut in bite-sized pieces

2.5 litres of water

3 tablespoons of peppersoup spice mix (Calabash Nutmeg, Alligator Pepper, Black Cardamom, Parinari excelsa)

1 stalk of lemon grass, bruised and cut into three pieces, tied into small bundles

1 – 2 Maggi bouillon cubes

Red chilli powder, to taste

Salt, to taste

2 teaspoons of ground crayfish (optional)