Made in Heaven

"There are soups and there are soups"

While it may sound like I've only repeated myself in the statement above, you would immediately agree to that assertion after having a good plate of what the people of my ethnicity christened "Okwogho Afang" popularly known by others as Afang Soup.

I was one of those kids highly selective of meals and would require lots of persuasion before having swallow and soup. However, none of my mother's persuasion tactics was needed for me to eat when the soup presented was afang.

At such young age, I already had a bias towards other soups maybe because I naively believed the recipe for afang soup was handwritten in heaven and delivered to my tribe for choosy kids like me. Well, I have grown over the years but I still believe there is a feel of heaven every time I perceive the aroma of a freshly cooked afang soup.

Afang soup, prepared by the hands of those who understand the method and appreciate the culture of the soup leaves everyone at the table in elated satisfaction but in the hands of imposters and by that I mean people who try so much to innovate afang soup even to the extent of using uncanny methods like frying the waterleafs, puts this soup in the mud.

While the popularity of this soup is ever increasing and will always make converts like the gospel, please in your effort to cook this divinely inspired soup, stick as much as possible to the methods described by its heritage because only then can the delight embedded in it be enjoyed.

For all times, my preferred pair with afang soup remains dried fish and snails and it is such I have here submitted 😘