Vegetable Soup

    James must have eaten thousands of meals in his lifetime, but only a few held strong memories for him. Not an easy feat, considering there are only so many times you eat a particular dish before it becomes commonplace.

    There was the bean porridge his aunt Chinanza used to make during the primary school holidays, which he and his siblings spent at her house. The porridge was watery, with fragrant fresh pepper and soft yams sliced into it. At that point in his life, he didn't enjoy eating beans, but he always enjoyed Aunt Chinanza's. He hadn't spoken to Aunt Chinanza since the big family fight, but whenever he thought of her, he thought of her beans.

    Then there was oil rice, which his brother Tom used to make when they were still in secondary school. Tom was a bit of a mad scientist when it came to the kitchen. He would go into the kitchen and concoct meals that their mother certainly did not teach them. Nobody knew how he came up with his recipes, but they always left James hungering for more. The first time James ate oil rice, before his university days when it became a necessity, Tom made it. James remembered the rice as being perfectly cooked, the individual grains orange-red. Spicy, but with a distinct tang of onions. Just like everything else Tom did, James had never been able to replicate oil rice, and every time his pocket forced him to make it, he thought of his brother.

    But all of these food memories paled in comparison to vegetable soup. Vegetable soup in his home was like jollof rice in some Nigerian homes; eaten only on special occasions. Although in his family, there was no rhyme or reason to when his mother chose to make it. James remembered evenings when his mother would return to their one-room apartment with polythene bags of water leaves. In the kitchen, James would sit in a circle with Tom and Chinwe, his sister. Together, they would start separating the leaves from the stalks. James found this a tedious exercise, as no matter how high the barren stalks grew, the bags of vegetables didn't seem to diminish. But looking forward to the delicious product of their hard work kept him going. By the time the sun had fully set, James and his siblings would be sharing a bowl of steaming vegetable soup with a substantial amount of eba. The soup would have dry fish and kpomo hidden among the green vegetables like treasure. James would try to hunt for as many of these as he could before his siblings could find them. By the time they were done, the plate would be licked clean and the eba finished too soon. Although their mother would make the soup enough for two servings, James and his siblings would only get to eat the soup on the first night. The rest of it was reserved for their mom. This arrangement only elevated vegetable soup to a king's meal status in James's eyes.

    James now lived in Lagos, and he found life to be generally tiring. He worked at a bank as an account manager, and although the pay was good, he felt no joy in spending it. However, every once in a while, he tried to recapture the simple feelings of his childhood by cooking meals he enjoyed as a child. And nothing did that better than vegetable soup. On this occasion, Tosin, his girlfriend of three years, had broken up with him. According to her, his "blues was spoiling her reggae." He didn't have the energy to plead otherwise; her "reggae" sapped his energy anyway. Regardless, he felt a sense of loss and was going to try to staunch the feeling with food.

    Despite being exhausted from work, he stopped by Ikorodu market. It was the closest place he knew he could get the water leaves he would need. They wouldn't be as fresh as the ones his mother used, but that was Lagos for you. He also bought ugu, scotch peppers, and stockfish. He was going to use some of the dried meat and fish his mother brought the last time she came to visit him. When James got home, he started the process of separating the water leaves from their stalks. He could have bought the ones already separated, but he had to uphold the tradition. But listening to Davido's Timeless album made the time pass quicker.

  By the time Kante was playing and Fave was singing "Can't dance to save myself but see as I dey roll," James was settling down to his meal. He said a short prayer while at the same time already imagining the taste of the first morsel in his mouth. He hoped God wouldn't mind. His hand was already in the bowl of eba by the time he said Amen.

    After carving out the first ball of eba with his hand, he created a dent in it to accommodate the soup. He guided the duo into his mouth and chewed with his eyes closed.