There is nothing nostalgic about going down memory lane to recount how this writer in his teenage days, in the village, somewhere in Edo state, would put any of his playmates to test on the day rice was cooked by asking: “Guess what my mother is cooking”. As a commonly expressed puzzle among playful children in those days, the respondent was wont to excitedly respond by simply saying “Rice”.
How the puzzle which was then a seeming trend among children in the village came about cannot be farfetched as rice was not commonly eaten in most homes; it was unarguably unaffordable by most breadwinners who were majorly peasant farmers. The irony then was that whilst those that dwelt in the urban areas, say Benin-City, Abudu or Agbor seemingly craved for pounded yam or cassava meals, the villagers in this case craved for Rice as a meal.
Also, the puzzle cannot equally be considered to be preposterous and a solecism at that time as it was usually expressed as a way of showing off in order to impress it on others that one’s family can as well afford the luxury of eating rice meal that was regularly eaten by children from well-to-do families.
Still on the puzzling question, “Guess what my mother is cooking”, which is invariably the title of this piece, the lucky respondent, so to say, was usually rewarded with an invitation to partake in the august meal; even with two or three spoonful measured into his or her palm which was in most cases voraciously eaten amid the watery stew running from the back of the palm through the arm and cascading at the elbow. Funnily enough, without regard for pleasant eating habit, the cascading watery stew would be “skillfully” licked.
The young ones then, at the time when any child that gulped down a bottle of soft drink (minerals) was considered to be a spoilt child, especially when he was not magnanimous enough to share the drink with his siblings or playmate were usually cautioned not to divulged the information to their friends that rice was being cooked. You may have been wondering why this writer is taking you through this memory lane. Permit me to say that the graphic picture been painted is to condition the mind for it to grasp the level of culinary appeal that rice commanded in those days. I may swim with the tide that special culinary recognition was not only accorded to rice but to other eatables. For instance, the eating of egg, fried fish or meat was exclusively meant for adults to the extent that children that playfully extended their greedy eating habit to secretly eating cooked egg or fried fish were automatically tagged as “thieves”.
However, the reason why parents cautioned children at that time not to spread the news that rice was being cooked was attributed to the fact that doing so would pull crowd to the home where rice was being cooked. Even when the children that were so cautioned collectively kept a sealed lip, the aroma that usually came from the boiling stew was wont to let the cat out of the bag.
The strongly delivered caution was never considered to be inadvisable as cooking of rice on a regular basis was wont to either pull crowd to the home where it was being cooked or made jealous neighbors to exhibit their naughty stock-in-trade. It would be reiterated at this juncture that children whose parents were wont to cook rice on a regular basis usually had many friends flocking to their homes during lunch break as observed during the primary school days by this writer. They were not used to eating “Mama Put”. It was ostensibly an anathema to them.
Not only did the cooking of rice as a family meal pulled crowd, it made some of the young ones to resort to selfishly or greedily tuck away spoons whenever rice was in the process of being cooked as there were usually not enough for everyone on such special occasion.
Without any scintilla of hyperbole, myriads of oddities so much characterized the ability or inability to afford rice as a meal in the days it was regarded as “Gold” that even some musicians lyrically eulogized it through their hits. Also, local proverb had its (and still has it) that “It is a taboo for a poor man to dream of eating rice). The basis of the proverb can be attributed to how difficult it was for a poor man at that time to afford the money needed to cook rice for his family.
Rice, which any child at that time was wont to obsessively spelt audibly thus, R-I-C-E for people to hear when going on errand that was associated to its cooking was so special that its preparation was unarguably a joyful moment for children at that time. They were wont to derive a sense of joy while going on errand that were related to buying tin tomatoes, opening the tin tomatoes with knife or scratching it hard on a cemented floor as tin cutter was not common then among the peasants but the middle class.
Laughable of all the oddities that prevailed then was that many a children was wont to leave his hands unwashed as a way of making others perceive the aroma of the stew and thereby had the question in his dialect directed at him: “Did your mother cooked rice?” to which he would excitedly reply “Yes my mother cooked rice. Without any iota of exaggeration, rice is considered to be a very special and delicious staple food that every August 22 of every year is celebrated as World Jollof Rice Day to the ignorance of many. That Rice command a strong culinary appeal is no more in doubt. Merely for the sake of eating rice, children, and even adults, in those days looked up to the celebration of Easter and Christmas. During the two seasons, children who could not exercise restraint regarding their appetites greedily ate in most cases that some of them either had “running stomach” or exhaled rice from their nasal cavity when they sneezed.
It was as if some of them that went through the foregoing laughable experiences greedily ate what would last them till the next period of festivity as it was not everyday’s meal like “Eba” or “Fufu”.
But alas! The decibel of the seeming puzzling noise: “Guess what my mother is cooking” instantly faded into oblivion during the administration of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, under the presidential leadership of former president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari due to the mass and indiscriminate importation of rice that the administration was spectacularly characterized with. Simply put, it was an importation galore.
Then, rice was indiscriminately imported from Thailand, Bangladesh, China and what have you that the price incidentally settled at the rock bottom so much that both the rich and the poor were able to afford it as their regular meal. Simply put, virtually every Nigerian started cooking rice as a daily meal. One may not be wrong at this juncture to opine that the administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari under the NPN-led government that lasted from 1979-1983 made rice to become a staple food.
Regrettably, as you read this piece, “Guess what my mother is cooking” may once again regained its relevance and literarily finds its way back to the lips of children whose parents can hardly eat three square meal as the economic situation is by each passing day becoming worse.
The reason for the seeming prophecy of doom made in the foregoing cannot be farfetched as the price of rice has once again soared beyond the reach of the poor. A “Derica of rice” in Lagos oscillates between N300 and N350; depending on the brand and quality.
Ostensibly as a result of the forlorn situation, experts in the agro sector of the economy have been speaking over the situation. While receiving an award bestowed on him and his company recently by the Institute of Government Research Leadership Technology, a leading rice producer in the country, Chief Akai Egwuonwu attributed the high cost of rice to the paucity of paddies in the country, ban on the importation of foreign rice and attributed the major factor to the quest of Nigeria to attain self-sufficiency and sustainability in rice production. He added at the event that the escalating price of rice was further aggravated by the foreign exchange crisis, particularly as all implements for rice production were imported.
Speaking from the sideline of the event, Egwuonwu said “Currently everything is going up. The cost of dollar is going up and you know most of the farm implements are imported – from the fertilizers down to the seeds, down to insecticides, down to tractors, they are all imported.
He added that “Another thing you have to put into consideration is that the government has stopped the importation of foreign rice. It has effectively stopped that. So, as a result of high demand, you expect prices to go up because there is a gap to be filled.” He assured that as soon as the gap is filled the price may fall by the next harvesting season, say from November 2016.
To my view, rice, being a staple food should not be left in the hands of profiteers and thereby go beyond the reach of the people. If the price continues to soar without the government putting a palliative measure in place, it should not be a surprise to hear adults in the near distant future asking one another in the office “What will your wife cook today?” At the rate the price of rice is uncontrollably soaring high, Nigerians are getting to the stage where they would be putting the puzzle to one another.
In view of the ridiculous situation it would put Nigeria in the eyes of smaller countries, it is expedient for the on-going government of President Muhammadu Buhari to lay emphasis on the production of rice in the recently carved roadmap for the agricultural sector tagged: “The Green Alternative: Agricultural Promotion Policy: 2016-2020”. To me, all hands must be on deck to prevent our children from playing with the puzzling prattle, “Guess what my mother is cooking”.
Isaac Asabor, a freelance Journalist, writes from Lagos
