An Igbo man from Akegbe Ugwu in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State, I grew up in the village and did not know anything about table manner. I shall tell you in this post how we used to eat in those days.
My siblings and I would pound a large quantity of fufu (akpu) and wrap it with a waterproof to prevent it from drying up due to the harsh weather. And then we would put it in a basket. It was big enough to last for about three days, eaten by eight persons.
Concerning the soup, we would pound ogbono and go to the farmvto pluck leaf. We were blessed in the village because we produced 90 per cent of what we ate. We would make a good ogbono soup and put twenty naira mangara fish (dry fish). The fish was too little for the soup but we would always put it because we know that people put fish in their soup. Then our soup was ready!
HOW WE ATE
The food used to be in large quantity. So everybody would go into the kitchen and fetch his own. The rule in those days was "fetch the quantity you can finish". If you made a mistake and fetch the one you were not able to fish, daddy would teach you a lesson.
We fed well! Then what we knew about feeding well was eating a large quantity of food. The class of food or how it was eaten did not matter. We ate predominantly akpu morning, afternoon and night. It showed in our body. Malnutrition! It affected us in so many ways, even in our cognitive development.
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