The other day I attempted to eat like a Nigerian.
I had a serving of jollof rice, red rice flavored with a sauce made of tomatoes, spices and chili peppers. It was topped, initially, with some piece of boiled beef.
Later I replaced the beef with goat meat, a piece that still had the skin on.
"People who know about meat, always go for the goat," said Bamidelle Ogundele, better known as Lady D, the owner and chief chef of Lady D's Cafe at 2637 Greenmount Ave.
Ogundele was giving me a quick tutorial in the cuisine of her native country, Nigeria. It is a lesson that is likely to be repeated this weekend at Patterson Park. There, she will be one of the vendors selling food at FestAfrica, a two-day event celebrating African culture, music and heritage.
Many Nigerians and some residents of Ghana like the texture and flavor of goat meat, she said.
"When you eat something, you should feel it," Ogundele said, referring to the chewable nature of goat meat. "When you have goat, you chew it longer than beef, getting more taste out of it," she added.
A restaurant patron, Kennedy Marfo, a native of Ghana, also praised goat meat.
"Its protein level is much higher than beef," he said. "The back of the goat, the juicy part, is much better with the skin on."
I sampled a piece of goat meat with the skin still on it. I struggled. I was reminded that I grew up in Kansas, a long way from Nigeria. I had a hard time chewing it.
I did like the jollof rice. It had zing, provided by a hot pepper sauce. Chili peppers are held in high regard by Nigerian cooks, Ogundele said.
Images of hot peppers and tomatoes decorated her restaurant. Some Nigerians, she said, have a taste for hot-pepper soup, which they have at the end of the meal, as an aid to digestion.
The fiery soup, however, was not on the menu at her restaurant. "It is a special request item," she told me, but I did not request it.
Fried plantain, sometimes called dodo in Nigeria, is another staple of Nigerian food, she said. The four fried plantains that came with my serving of jollof rice were delicate and flavorful.
Yams figure prominently in the cuisine of Nigeria and other African countries, and Ogundele and Marfo had a long discussion about fufu, pounded yams
In Africa, the yams are peeled, cooked, then pounded with a long stick and served as a dish that resembles mashed potatoes, they said.
