Ji, the yam, is the centre of it
Yam is the staple, the crop every man was expected to grow, and it’s called the king of all crops, the only one with its own ritual. Yam was a man's crop: a man with enough barns carried the title diji. Cocoyam, cassava and groundnuts were the women's crops.
It’s boiled, roasted, or pounded and eaten with soup. Pounded yam, nni ji, is the most popular way to prepare it and the dish of every feast, from title-taking to the festival itself. That standing is why the harvest gets its own festival, and why the first yams aren’t eaten before the prayers have been said.
Soups are the main event
Igbo cooking is built around soups eaten with a swallow. The swallows are named for what they’re made of: nni ji from yam, nni akpụ from cassava, nni ọka from maize. Ụtara is the general word for the soft, elastic ball. The soup is ofe, and each one is named for its main vegetable.
Ofe onugbu is bitterleaf soup, made with the leaves of Vernonia amygdalina along with meat, fish, stockfish and crayfish. The leaves are washed, squeezed and soaked before cooking to take most of the bitterness out. You may also hear the leaf called olugbu. Ofe akwụ, made from the palm fruit, is the other one you’ll meet early.
Abacha and ugba
Abacha is cassava, boiled, shredded and dried, then dressed with palm oil and mixed with ugba, dried fish, pepper and onion. The name means the cassava flakes and the finished dish both. Food scientists at Nsukka have graded cassava varieties by how well they make it. It’s often called African salad on English menus.
Ugba, also called ụkpaka, is the seed of the African oil bean tree, Pentaclethra macrophylla, boiled, sliced and fermented in banana leaves. How long it ferments decides its use: two to five days for salad, six to ten for flavouring soup. It’s an important part of the diet in the Igbo east.
Nkwobi
Nkwobi is cow foot, cooked and mixed into a spiced palm oil sauce thickened with potash, with utazi leaves on top. It’s usually eaten with drinks: palm wine, beer or stout.
It’s a beer-parlour and restaurant dish that’s also made at home.
Ọkpa
Ọkpa is made from bambara groundnut flour, Vigna subterranea, mixed with red palm oil, pepper, salt and water, then wrapped in leaves and steamed until it sets. The bean itself is ọkpa ibi.
It’s closely associated with Enugu, where it’s a breakfast bought hot on the road.