Cynthia Nwazurike’s favourite food is garri (processed cassava) with any type of soup from any part of the country, so long as it has ‘draw’ in it. ‘Draw’, to Nwazurike, is ogbono soup.
A soup is considered ‘draw’, so long as its thick nature makes it to draw out of the pot when it is taken with spoon or hand. There are different types of this soup: ogbono, okro, orunla and ewedu.
Ogbono, which is popular with people from the South East region of Nigeria (the Igbo), is known as apon in Yoruba. Ogbono is the seed of bush/wild mango fruit called ugiri (Igbo) or oro (Yoruba).
The mango-like green-skinned fruit has to be eaten and the episperm cracked open to get to the seed.
“Although this fruit is not easily come by in Lagos, I try to get it because it is useful in the improvement and control of diabetes,” explained Malon Ikudehinbu, a traditional healer.
The seed has brown covering when it is taken out of the shell. “I could remember that my grandmother relishes cooking her apon fresh. So we usually use a grinding stone and it takes a lot of patience to get a smooth paste. But the flavour is better than when cooked after drying out,” revealed Bunmi Edomwonyi, a teacher.
Some people like their ogbono soup plain, with no added vegetables; others would not touch it unless there is some kind of vegetable in it. A third group love their ogbono soup with okro, while some others add egusi (melon) to it.
If the slimy nature of ogbono is too much to handle, okro and ewedu are alternatives that can be explored. Known as ladies’ fingers because of its shape, okro can be cooked as soup (ila alasepo in Yoruba meaning together), but there is no ewedu soup.
However, the two can be prepared and used as stew accompaniment. Little potash is usually added to make it slimier, as dried crayfish can also be added to enhance its flavour.
The ewedu leaf is plucked from the stem and cooked with small potash in little quantity of water. Few minutes later, a special ewedu broom, which is shorter than the normal sweeping broom, is then used to shred the leaves for more slime.
According to Toyin Abiodun, a paediatrician at Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Oyingbo, “Ewedu is a very important diet we recommend for mothers to give their babies when they want to start solid feeding. Titus fish or ground and sieved dried crayfish (to eliminate tiny bones) should be added.”
Ewedu (rama in Hausa) is also used for soups (taushe). “The leaves are very good for cooking one of my favourite dishes, kwado. I simply boil the leaves and mix it with kuli-kuli (groundnut cake) to get the dish.
Okro can also be preserved by drying it, to be used for later cooking. It is known as orunla (Yoruba) and busheshe kubewa (Hausa).
These ‘draw’ soups gives smooth passage down the throat for puddings like eba, fufu, amala and semolina.
