On Food: The Battle of Versatility

Yam or Beans

Day 2/30:

We are actually blessed with a lot of versatile foods in Nigeria. One raw food can be used to make 3-4 different delicacies. E.g. Garri, Rice, Beans, etc. Really blessed.

But I’ve been thinking lately, which one is the number 1 versatile food. One with the highest conversion rate. The battle is between Yam and Beans. These guys are the OG of raw local foods. But there can only be one king in the forest eh.

I’m not really a fan of yam, we had ugly moments when I was really young but it’s not total hate — Yam makes my favorite swallow (pounded yam) so yea, we are trying to make it work.

Beans? Beans is a staple in this house. We’ve had only good moments . So I guess that makes me already partial towards having beans as the winner.

But we’ll see, this will be a fair judgement.

Let’s take a look at the different kinds of food that can be made with each. Then we select our winner. Fair enough.

YAM:

1. Plain yam, or with whatever (i.e. egg, oil, etc.)
2. Pounded yam
3. Yam porridge
4. Yam gizdodo
5. Yam peppersoup
6. Fried yam
7. Roasted yam
8. Yam flour/Àmàlà
9. Yamarita (never had this before but I heard it’s a popular Hausa food)

For BEANS:

1. Plain Beans/ẹwà agoyin alone or with whatever (i.e. bread, rice, etc. Beans is pretty friendly with a lot of other foods)
2. Àkàrà
3. Moimoi/Apápa (Kogi moimoi lookalike)
4. Beans soup/Gbẹgiri
5. Ekuru (yoruba dish, never had it before though)
6. Dan Wake (a northern food made with beans flour)

Dan Wake

And so we have come to the end of this versatility contest between Yam and Beans.

Total scores: Yam = 9, Beans = 6.

winner

Yam has the most range, Yam is king.

Any lesson to learn here? hmmm… well if anyone asks out of the blue “what food has the most range in Nigeria”, you don’t have to think twice before replying “Yam”.

So there, you’re welcome.

Thanks for reading, Adios for now :)