I believe everyone has different levels of relationships with food. Some people tend to love food and explore diverse meals, both local and international, more than others; however, everyone needs food to live, regardless of how much we love food.
Growing up as a child with my family, I didn't experience anything like dining out, but when it comes to exploring our native food, it's almost on a daily basis, and then the whole dining is always indoors. However, I noticed this bond that comes with dining together as a family. There's this feeling of joy and some sweet stories that accompany each meal with my family and me, attracting more bonds between us. Today, with my own family, I love preparing our local meals and our family dishes with my kids; however,we only dine out once in a while.
Today, I am going to show you one of my favorite recipes. It's a family dish. It's so local, nice, and not too stressful to prepare. This meal is called banga stew and is eaten with white boiled rice.
Below are the recipes for banga stew:
 |  |
The above images of the ingredients are palm fruits, gotten from a palm tree, red in color, which is the major recipe for preparing this meal, then the vegetables (pumpkin leaf and cent leaf), stock fish, dried fish, Maggi, fresh pepper, onions, crayfish, salt, and fresh fish.
Procedures for the preparation:
Firstly, boil your stock meats of any type of your choice and set aside. Here, I used fresh fish. After that, the palm fruits are usually hard and will be boiled until they get soft, usually between 20 and 30 minutes. When the palm fruit is done, it will be pounded using a local mortar and pistol, as seen below.
Next is to extract the paste from the palm carnel and other chaff with the use of water and a sieve. To achieve this, you will add reasonable quantity of water and, with a clean hand, mix it thoroughly and sieve it out.
Now the extract, as seen here, is the main sauce for your banga stew. What you need to do is just get it boiled for like 15 minutes before adding every other ingredient listed above, all at the same time, then allow it to boil together for a while, check the taste, and pull it down from the fire if it tastes satisfactory.
The process sounds tedious, but it's not a tedious process, and for the love of this family dish, I can always prepare it anytime to satisfy my craving.
Aside from the banga stew, vegetable stew is one other meal I have been exploring as a foodie. It's simple to prepare, healthy, and nutritious for the body. It also goes well with white rice, as seen below.
What, then, is my relationship with food?
I think I have a healthy relationship with food because my body system accepts varieties of food from both local and international restaurants without being allergic to any. Recently, I started eating food from other cultures and have loved the adventure so far. One of the basic needs of human beings is food, at least for survival. Anything called food to quench my hunger, I am in for it. This is how much of my relationship with food.
I hope you try out the recipe I gave above.
This post was inspired by the #inleo community and my entry to the #Aprilinleo monthly topic Day 10.Please check out the announcement post to get involved.
Thanks so much for reading through 🤗.
All images are mine!