What do people eat in Nigeria?
Nigerians eat a light breakfast, then rice or a swallow such as pounded yam or eba with a rich soup for lunch and dinner. Jollof rice is the party dish, and suya is the night snack.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
Breakfast is light. A classic is pap, also called ogi, a smooth corn porridge, with akara, fried bean fritters. Five akara are about 270 kcal. Bread and tea is just as common, and tea here means a hot cocoa drink with milk. Boiled yam with fried eggs or stew is the bigger option.
Lunch
Lunch is a full meal. Jollof rice, cooked in a tomato and pepper sauce, or white rice with stew, comes with chicken, beef or fish, fried plantain and beans. A plate of jollof is about 480 kcal before the meat. Office workers eat at a buka, a small local restaurant that often cooks on firewood.
Dinner
Dinner is often a swallow with soup. A swallow is a soft dough of yam, cassava or grain: pounded yam, eba from garri, amala in the southwest, fufu in the east and tuwo in the north. You pinch off a piece with your fingers and dip it. A plate of pounded yam is about 360 kcal, and egusi soup, thick with ground melon seeds and palm oil, adds about 400.
Starters
Meals rarely have a starter. Snacks fill that space instead, like meat pies and puff puff. Moi moi, a steamed pudding of blended beans and peppers, sits next to the rice, about 200 kcal a portion.
Desserts
There is usually no dessert after a meal. Sweet things are snacks: puff puff, soft fried dough balls, about 300 kcal for three, and chin chin, small crunchy fried dough cubes. Fruit is the other way to end the day, and groundnuts with a banana is a classic pairing.
Drinks
Zobo is a cold hibiscus drink, often with ginger, and kunu is made from millet. Palm wine is tapped from palm trees and drunk fresh. Malt drinks and soft drinks go with jollof at every party. Beer and stout are sold in bars across most of the country, but not where Islamic law bans alcohol in the north.
Street food
Suya is the night food: thin beef on skewers, rubbed with a spice of ground peanuts and chilli, grilled and served with raw onion. 100 g is about 230 kcal. Kilishi is the dried version from the north. Gala, a sausage roll, with a bottle of La Casera, an apple soda, is the classic snack on a road trip. Dodo, fried ripe plantain, is about 240 kcal for 100 g.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Swallows are eaten with the fingers, and many people say cutlery ruins them. Families often eat from one shared bowl and save the meat for last. Party jollof is said to taste best cooked over firewood, which gives it a smoky flavour.