The Diary Game (12/05/2024) - Myths about Twin babies' food sacrifice and finding a perfect delicacy for the afternoon

Introduction

It's mother's day and the church has decided on a joint service with the Yoruba language translated into English. The usual practice has always been two services on sundays, the English service first and followed by the Yoruba service.

On special occasions, we resolve to a single service such that the church would have enough time for the service. It's mothering sunday and the service took longer than expected. I've got a delicacy on my mind before today and I decided to explore my cooking skills when I got home.

Preparing Ekuru

It was around 2 pm when I got home from church, it was indeed a long day but then I couldn't miss the opportunity to cook Ekuru, a delicacy that has been on my mind for sometime and has some connections with twin babies in Yoruba land.

Twin babies known as Ìbejì (two births) are treated as gods in the Yoruba land, majorly by the extreme traditionalists. They would carve wooden sculptures to represent the pair and offer beans (or other food made from beans) as sacrifices. In essence, twins are treated with great respect in Yoruba land.

Food made from beans is cooked and shared in the community to represent gifts from the twins and they believe it's a sacrifice to keep the twins healthy and adds to the prosperity of the family. Sometimes, cooked beans served with palm oil are shared, it typically represents the twin's food. Not everyone follows that suit especially when you don't live in the village or you ain't a traditionalist.

So, I've got this idea to make Ekuru (one of the typical foods used for twins' sacrifices) but my purpose of making it was not for the sacrifice, lol. It's been a long time since I ate this delicacy and I would love to make it with my own hands. Ekuru is a food predominantly made with black-eyed beans and eaten with pepper sauce. This food is quite popular in Yoruba land, food vendors who are committed to it alone sometimes hawk it aroundthe town.

I started the preparation around 15:30 on the Sunday afternoon with the mindset of making it for myself excluding other family members. I guess I wasn't so sure of myself because that would be the first day I would prepare Ekuru.

Some of the ingredients that are used for Ekuru are but not limited to;

• Black-eyed beans.
• Pepper and Onions.
• Locust beans.
• Other seasonings.
• Cow skin.

The cooking started while I fetched three cups of beans, had them peeled, blended and bartered till all air molecules within the beans were eliminated.

_Beans

_Blended

After about 20 minutes of continuous stirring, it was time to package the blended beans into nylon for cooking (there are leaves used for that purpose), I only laid my hand on a material I could find easily.

_{Selfie while packing the Ekuru into the nylons}

The blended beans were packed into 4 nylons and were set on fire to cook for 30 - 40 minutes.

_{The cooking began}

While the cooking was ongoing, I fetched the pepper mixture (pure scotch bonnet with a small number of onions) from the fridged and cow skins.

_{Pepper mixture and cow skins}

Palm oil would be used to fry this mixture. Locust beans would also be used as a local seasoning, this is quite popular in this part of the world.

Palm Oil	Locust beans

To make the ekuru sauce, the palm oil was set on fire at a medium temperature and the locust beans were poured in to be fried for a few minutes followed by the pepper mixture and the sliced cow skin. Salts and other seasonings were added.

_{Deep fried Ekuru sauce}

The Ekuru was ready after about 40mins and it was served. The result showed that I didn't barter the beans well to eliminate the air molecules but it ain't bad anyway. It's a delicious meal.

_{Served Ekuru and Sauce}

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are a lot of myths surrounding things but we can only choose what to believe and practice. There are myths about twin babies in my tribe but that has only enabled me to lay my hands on cooking a popular delicacy. I hope you had a great read.