I can easily say this of my grandmother — the not-always-smiling, yet warm and subtly mischievous retired mama-put seller who gave my family its love language: to feed, to nourish, to love. When she suddenly became a single mother in her thirties, left with eight children, Mbu picked up her spoon and got by selling food to schoolchildren in Ogbogbo and Okrika Island from a wheelbarrow. It was in her kitchen that I learnt how palm oil, like seawater, heals and that nourishment is another way to care.
In his book Okrika: In Search of an Ancestry, the historian, J.A. Fiberesima offers a reflection that although runs counter to mine, underscores the importance of that experience:
“I didn’t know how to roast corn or
sardines. I was not the kitchen type — in
my mother’s house were many maids, so
my jottings were not derived from fireside
stories.”
Still From Pülö: bloodstream of the Kirike
Cover page, "In Search of an Ancestry" by J.A. Fiberesima
Unlike him, I grew up by the fireside, in the kitchen where everything gathered: the assembling, personalities, anxieties, and secrets of the home, all settling into a pot. It was there I learnt how to make a fire and what keeps the home warm.
Growing up in the ’90s, the waters were already changing, still alive, yet tainted, especially in taste. Today, that flavour feels more distant, dulled by pollution as though the river has forgotten its own tongue. The salt water has turned bitter, tasting now of bile.
Still From Pülö: bloodstream of the Kirike
Maybe it isn’t far-fetched to think that the fading of our waters mirrors the absence of our matriarch; the one who once fed us, who knew where the best catch would rise. In tracing our culture, we’ve come to see that as the fish disappear and the river falls silent, so too does the language of our cuisine.
It’s been thirteen years since Mbu passed, yet her communal and culinary spirit still fills our home. From the day she was buried, this serving tray has never left our table and we keep a small reservoir of souvenirs from her funeral for every child who moves away, just like me. Somehow, she’s followed me into both my apartments, remaining at the centre of meals, of service, of hospitality — present each time I eat or welcome guests.
Years later, working in my community, I found myself often embraced back, sometimes because our resemblance drew the words, “mi Mbu ma be gbori toku-e,” other times simply at the mention of her name. Her legacy lives on, not only in our home, but in the memories of those she once fed and cared for.
To honour Mbu, we chose not just to recreate her dishes but also to reimagine them. The tasting became a translation of her most memorable ingredients and her wheelbarrow of food reassembled into a curated table, where flavours carried history and the quiet power of women who fed us into being.
Each plate echoed the Atlantic that once nourished us, an act of love and defiance against loss, and a gathering that asked: what does it mean to feed in a culture where mouths are half fed and stomachs growing weak amidst the poison?
The Table as Utopia
The table itself was set like an altar, adorned with items familiar to our grandmothers’ tables; a lantern, flower vases, and cutlery that didn’t always match but formed its own visual language. Draped in ikaki, our indigenous wrapper from my grandmother’s trunk box now passed on to my mother — its bold black-and-white patterns grounded the lush green setting in the room, all iconographies rooted deeply in Kirike soil.
Around the room, plants spoke in the soft language of symbolism: Queen’s palm, Gold Dust, Ti plant, Traveler’s palm, and ferns; all sharing qualities of resilience, regeneration, and tropical abundance. These are plants that thrive in humidity, adapt to harshness, and retain beauty despite exposure, much like the women who first tended this land.
Heliconia psittacorum and Anthurium leaves
Lobster claw flower
On the table, bursts of heliconia psittacorum, lobster claw flower and anthurium leaves , reached upward like prayers. Together, they formed a small utopia; a vision of what might have been if our waters had stayed pure, if our foremothers still fetched from the river to boil out sea salt, and if the air still held the aroma of their pots.
In that moment, it felt as though MBU, and all the women who willed us into being, were present
— watching, blessing, communing with us.
Still From Pülö: bloodstream of the Kirike
To accompany the evening, we toasted with Salt & Spirit: a reimagined ‘gin-basil’ inspired cocktail built on ogogoro aged in alligator pepper, lemongrass, and cinnamon, resting on a citrus–mango–udara base and rimmed with sea salt. It lingered like a benediction — bitter, sweet, saline; a last invitation to remember the water that made us and the ancestors no longer here but bonded by the very soil we stand on.
SALT & SPIRIT: Ogogoro aged in alligator pepper, lemongrass, and cinnamon on a citrus–mango–udara base and rimmed with sea salt.
Guests began with mgbe (oyster) omelette and thinly fried yam resting in a prawn head bisque — a nod to one of my grandmother’s beloved breakfasts, though without her customary cup of hot chocolate.
STARTER: Mgbe (oyster) omelette and thinly fried yam resting in a prawn head bisque
MAIN COURSE: Onunu nestled in a moqueca-inspired stew, with smashed beans on the side and pan-seared snapper coated in a crayfish–yaji–garri crust.
STARTER: Mgbe (oyster) omelette and thinly fried yam resting in a prawn head bisque
MAIN COURSE: Onunu nestled in a moqueca-inspired stew, with smashed beans on the side and pan-seared snapper coated in a crayfish–yaji–garri crust.
For the main course: onunu nestled in a moqueca-inspired stew, echoing our fish stew, with smashed beans on the side and pan-seared snapper coated in a crayfish–yaji–garri crust. The resemblance between our indigenous fish stew and Brazil’s moqueca felt uncanny — as though flavours long separated by oceans had found their way back to one another. The onunu — yam pounded with very ripe plantain — lent a gentle sweetness that softened the snapper’s sharp salt, as if the land itself were soothing the sea.
“It became less about coincidence and more about dialogue; a quiet exchange between continents, histories, and kitchens.”
My grandmother, Kirike and Ijaw by heritage, had grown up in Ajegunle, Lagos, where she returned home with her own iconic take on ewa agoyin. It felt only natural, then, to pair and experiment with her other favourite Saturday lunch: onunu. Serving the fish this way, alongside the beans she was known for, felt like continuing a conversation she began long before me: one about sustenance, belonging, and the return of all the water once carried away.
FIRST STORY: Whole Snapper
SECOND STORY: Lobster bathed in okazi curry butter
THIRD STORY: Pan-fried epolï (tiger prawns) tossed in scent-leaf chimichurri
From there, guests were invited to choose their story: a whole snapper finished in the same crust; lobster bathed in okazi curry butter; or pan-fried epolï (tiger prawns) tossed in scent-leaf chimichurri — each plate a celebration of abundance, variety and the once-layered seafood flavours of this side of the Atlantic. Okazi, especially, carried me back — it was my grandmother’s favourite and the first soup I ever learnt to make, when I could barely see over my mother’s gas cooker.
THE SILENT WATER NOMAD: Apalapa paired with fried songu
The meal then moved into The Silent Water Nomad: apalapa paired with fried songu — a humble, grounding dish, brought together by the pestle’s rhythm and hands that know how to coax life from scarcity.
HOME SWEET HOME: Mango–lime–chilli sorbet with Bayelsa bread crunch and a dusting of coconut candy
For dessert, Home Sweet Home arrived: mango–lime–chilli sorbet with Bayelsa bread crunch and a dusting of coconut candy — a bright, slightly mischievous closing that carried both heat and comfort, like the last, forgiving mouthful of a long family meal. A sweetness I first knew in Port Harcourt Town, on Niger Street, when my mother was still a seamstress. After school, we’d sit with her as she worked, and only then would we go back home. Coconut candy coloured my childhood; it was sold on every street, from Aggrey road to Lagos Bus stop and was the little magical treat mothers offered to soothe their restless children.
People leaned in not just to eat, but to remember, some recalling their grandmothers’ kitchens, others tasting this history for the first time. The evening reminded me that storytelling, like cooking, is an act of assembly. We take fragments — memories, ingredients, histories and make something whole. To feed is to remember; and in remembering our roots, we resist forgetting what the water once gave us, and what we must continue to fight to preserve.
"Every ingredient came from waters other than Okrika, some from the cleaner stretches of the Atlantic — and that, in itself, says everything."
Produced by IMBUU as part of the upcoming premiere and impact series for Pülö: bloodstream of the Kirike, this rotating exhibition continues the film’s core inquiry — how legacy, nourishment, and survival intertwine, tracing back to a woman who once fed her community and by extension a new generation.
Live plants & Tablescape curation by Yingi Goma of Goduko Studios and Lush Gardens, whose collaboration helped us imagine this living altar. The menu was thoughtfully curated by Christina Ifubaraboye of IMBUU and cooked with care and love by Chef O of Southside Culinary.
