The kitchen as homeland

Ask any Nigerian immigrant what they missed most when they first arrived, and very few will say weather or traffic. Most will say food — and then, after a pause, the people the food was always made for.

The kitchen becomes a kind of time machine. Egusi is not just soup — it is Sunday afternoons at someone's mother's house. Puff puff is not just a snack — it is a celebration that had not ended by the time you had to leave. Jollof at midnight is not irresponsible — it is a small, determined act of being Nigerian in a country that has never heard of parboiling rice.