The Cultural Dish I Dislike

Greetings everyone, hope you all had a lovely day. Welcome to my blog.

I am so delighted to be a part of this #hivenaijaweekly prompt, I sincerely appreciate the mods and admins of this great community for making out this great opportunity for everyone to express their preferences.

Here in Nigeria we have assorted kinds of cultural dishes, as an Akwa Ibomite from the Ibibio ethnic group, we have several delicious cultural food ranging from Ekpang Nkwukwo, afang soup, Edikang ikong, Afia efere, Oto mboro, Atama soup and lots more. Growing up in my native land, I have tasted varieties of our cultural food and I can proudly say there are all very tasty but people have preferences, people have likes and dislikes.

Image Source

Of all our cultural dishes, I dislike ATAMA SOUP, specifically “Abak Atama”. So many people enjoy Atama soup especially Abak Atama and I keep wondering what the find so special about the soup, virtually all my family members love Abak Atama but my sister and I dislike it a lot.

Abak Atama soup is made from freshly prepared palm fruit juice and atama leaves, periwinkle, meat, fish, crayfish, salt, seasoning cubes, uyayak(aidan fruit), stock fish etc. The main constituent of this soup is the palm fruit juice and the atama leaf but some people add a little bit of melon which acts as a thickner and aidan fruit to add flavour to the soup.

Image Source This is the palm fruit.

Image Source This is Atama Leaf

Image Source This is Aidan fruit (uyayak)

To prepare the soup, firstly you will have to boil the palm fruit till it is done and pound the palm fruit carefully by not hitting it too hard so you would not end up cracking all the nuts, thereafter you separate the flesh from the nut and then squeeze the juice from the pulp. This is just the phase one preparatory part of the soup.

Why I dislike Abak Atama: irrespective of the fact that Abak Atama is loved by so many people I dislike it a lot majorly because it does not satisfy me, I don’t find satisfaction in eating it, even though I eat it a whole day I will still feel hungry, you can imagine how frustrating that may be. I thought I was the only person that never found satisfaction in eating the soup not until I met other people who feel the same way after eating the soup. I would rather prefer eating it with white rice than eating it with Eba (garri or foofo), it feels so annoying eating and not being satisfied.

Some other reason I dislike the soup is because it is stressful and requires a whole lot of time to prepare. One has to go through the process of pounding the palm fruit and extracting the juice, this whole process is tiring, one who is inexperienced might find it difficult to prepare.

Another reason I dislike it is the cost of production. In Nigeria there is a quote that says “beta soup na money kill am”, since Abak Atama is a very prominent native dish it requires so much to prepare , you will have to cook it with meat, kpomo, smoked fish, periwinkle, snail , lots of crayfish, stock fish and lots more.

People like things differently, I appreciate the fact that it is one of the prominent native delicacies eaten by so many people, I personally do not enjoy eating Abak Atama.

Thank you friends for reading through my blog.

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