Of Love and Food

Dear Big Papi,

Afang-melon. I watched Nonso down his swallow with this concoction of a soup that irritated my gut. I couldn’t understand it! Just have either Afang or Melon! But in Malabor, it felt like one of the rituals for the rite of passage.

I still believe, however, that those who enjoyed Afang-Melon are men who juggle Nsikan and Ogechi. These men bathe in the pool of polygamy. Yet again, you can’t deny the tingling sensation that hits your tongue when Afang and Melon hold hands while walking down the alley of your throat. It’s even all the more perfect when they’re moonwalking on a ball of fufu.

In that moment, the fire works in your head set off. You taste satisfaction, picking out its ingredients. I hear they call it, foodgasm. It could happen with spaghetti; oil beans sandwiched by Agege bread, the type you can mold into balls, that one, is guaranteed to give you that.

For some, it is triggered by parfaits only found in Calabar. I think about this- parfaits only found in Calabar, and I figure it is because parfait is a person yet unfound. A person to be found in Calabar. I dare say it’s not a stretch because places make people. And what’s a place but a story told by a million voices divided into chapters found in her music and her dance and her food and her air and her art? Someone told me food is art.

See, to cook is to summon spirits for much more than the condiments go into the pot. Every pinch of salt is predicated by our history; every smidge of spice informed by who we want to be before the world. Again, I am reaching.

I digress. Doesn’t love always?

I think love is not some butterfly fluttering in my stomach; it’s like the sound of spring waters rushing over rocks in the cool of the evening. It is rainfall on a Wednesday morning after hours of being on the phone with someone tailor-made for you. Yes, love doesn’t sit on an empty stomach but love is satisfying even on an empty stomach. Safe to say that if praise is the meal made by men for God, love is the meal prepared by God for men.

Maybe all I’m trying to say is, I’m in love!

Your buddy,

Frank.