Buttermilk Graffiti

by Edward Lee

  “It is about community,” he tells me. “You present a world where innovation is the by-product of your status quo. The reason you don’t have black people at your restaurant is because what they want is something familiar. It could be the food or it could be the community. Your restaurant is pompous, and it offers neither of these things.”

  I choke on my croissant.

  Tunde and I go to an African market I never knew existed in Louisville. We buy grains and palm oil and spices I’ve never used before. We get twenty pounds of frozen goat meat with the skin attached. Tunde is excited by the skin. It is rare for me to go into a market and be so unfamiliar with the ingredients. The only thing I know for sure how to cook is the twenty-pound box of plantains we haul away. Afterward, I take Tunde to my favorite fried chicken joint, Indi’s, a local mini-chain that was started by a Trinidadian family almost twenty years ago. We order fried chicken, potato wedges, broccoli-and-cheese casserole, collard greens, and boiled string beans. I ask Tunde if he sees any connection between this soul food and the food of his West African roots.

  “We don’t eat much fried food. That is the biggest difference. But I see similarities, too. The North Carolina red rice is basically jollof rice. I see it in collard greens, in the way Southerners cook okra, and in many of the stewed vegetable dishes.”

  After lunch, Tunde gets an upset stomach and has to go down for a nap. It is the fried food, he tells me. He isn’t used to eating so much of it.

  We host his dinner at a cafeteria in Louisville’s West End, a predominantly African American neighborhood. The place is packed and diverse and humming with anticipation. Tunde makes jollof rice; goat curry stew; fufu, a steamed bread made from cassava flour; yam pottage; and plantains. After the dinner, we don’t talk about the food. Instead, Tunde guides a discussion around what it means to be black in America, in Louisville. At one point, he asks the white people in the room, “What are you personally willing to give up so that I may have success?” This quiets the room. He lets the silence linger like the smell of curry on our fingertips.

  It is nerve-racking to watch Tunde at work. I know he will at some point say something to rile up the crowd. He is nervously waiting for someone to respond. I understand what he’s trying to do, but at the same time, this is not the Tunde who just this morning made tea for me and joked about how insecure he was about his cooking. There is a side to him that is generous and vulnerable and funny.

  I’m sitting in the back row and whispering with Josh, Tunde’s friend from Nigeria. They went to college together in Detroit. Josh lives here in Louisville and works for Ford, as an engineer. Josh plays rugby. He keeps his hair buzzed short. He is half-listening to Tunde while looking at girls on his Tinder feed. We talk about the food, and Josh says to me, half-jokingly, “You know, I am a better cook than Tunde.”

  I’m taken aback. I ask him how that’s possible.

  “In Nigeria, many men know how to cook. It is our tradition. Tunde is good, don’t get me wrong, but my food is better.”

  “Then why don’t you do what he is doing?”

  “Because I want to make money and have a good life. Tunde is a philosopher. It is not always the best cook that opens the restaurant. In your culture that may be the case, but for us, each one of us chooses what life we want to have.”

  Josh tells me to go to Houston if I want really authentic Nigerian food. There I will find the intersection of commerce and craft. He shows me a picture of a beautiful young woman on his Tinder feed who wants to meet up with him.

  The next day, Tunde is off to eastern Kentucky, to cook another dinner, this time with Lora Smith, cofounder of the Appalachian Food Summit. Director at PhilCap Fund, a support organization for Appalachian-run businesses, a hemp seed grower, an activist, a farmer, and a mother, Lora lives and works on Big Switch Farm in Egypt, Kentucky. She drives two and a half hours to pick up Tunde from my restaurant. He gets into her car like a king stepping into a chariot.

  I have known Lora for a few years. She is a private person. She blushes when she speaks in front of a crowd, even though her words can hold a room breathless. There is a bounce to her voice, and she laughs easily, a guttural laugh like a stream that suddenly bends. Her protest is not in the public forum, like Tunde’s, but behind the scenes. She works tirelessly for her land, her crops, her people. She sees resistance in the pragmatic choices we make in everyday living.

  “Eating cornbread can be an act of protest,” she says. “If you know where it all comes from and you are trying to make a difference in how you spend your money.”

  She talks of preserving the resources of Appalachia. Her mission is to convince people to invest in the region. She sees romance as a means of funding. “I want people to fall in love with Appalachia because that’s the only way to get people to invest in it. And that is how I can protect and preserve this land.”

  Big Switch Farm is on lush, fertile soil, with soft hills and grasses that bend as the winds change direction. It is a place where you know your neighbors but may not see them for days. Dinners in these parts are either quick calories in between work or long celebrations and gatherings. There is no middle ground.

  Tunde’s dinner with Lora is a small gathering of artists, community leaders, and activists. They come for the food and, more than that, the dialogue. Later, Tunde writes about his experience with Lora in an article for Oxford American. It reads like a love letter. He rhapsodizes about eastern Kentucky as an idyllic place of farmland and dreams and good people. For all his steaming criticism of America, Tunde is a man who reacts to kindness. And Kentucky was kind to him, at least the small sample of it he interacted with. The next time I see Lora, we talk for a long time about Tunde, about his childish imperfections, his propensity for naps, his wit, and his brilliance. I jokingly tell her that I would love to live in the version of eastern Kentucky Tunde so tenderly portrays in that article.

  Houston is neither Texas nor the South. It is often referred to as the melting pot of the South. When I tell people in Houston that their city reminds me of Louisville, I get strange looks. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I see Houston as a place of many identities, diverse commerce, and international communities. Houstonians’ connection to the American South, as in Louisville, is as fragile as the windswept seeds from a dandelion puffball.

  Houston is home to the largest population of Nigerians in America, estimated at around 150,000. Many of the African restaurants dot Bissonnet Street, behind the flashy car dealerships and underneath the canopy of Houston’s intricate highway system. It is a place where most of my friends in Houston have never been. This is, in the local vernacular, a rough neighborhood. I am surprised at how openly the sex workers walk the street corners at dusk, propositioning men in cars.

  My first stop is a place called Afrikiko, a plain storefront in a strip mall that looks deserted. The restaurant seats about fifteen people. The only other people here are two men shooting the breeze, drinking Heineken. I ask them for food recommendations, and they invite me to join them. Anthony and Patrick are both from Lagos. Nigerians are friendly people, they say to me. It seems like a sweeping generalization, and one that I don’t typically pay attention to, but they insist it’s true. I tell them about my controversial friend Tunde. Patrick tells me to call Tunde on the phone. “I will have him laughing in no time,” he tells me. I put my phone on speaker and make the call. Tunde answers, and Patrick goes on a rant I can’t understand. He speaks a mix of Yoruba and Pidgin English. Within seconds, the two are bantering, and I can hear Tunde laughing on the other end of the line. Patrick is making fun of Tunde’s name. I don’t get why, but it has something to do with calling into question the nature of Tunde’s identity—is he really Nigerian? They call each other out on where in Nigeria they’re from, which tribe, what lineage. It is all in good fun, but as soon as Patrick hangs up the phone, he turns to me and says, “Your friend, he needs to learn what it means to be Niger
ian.”

  I find this an odd statement coming from a man who has just spoken with someone in his native tongue. Patrick is in his late fifties, but even in his laughter, he seems like a man who has not shed the demons of his youth. He tells me that if I want to know about Nigeria, I must buy him and his friend a round of beers. He says it jokingly but does not refuse the beers when I order them.

  Anthony is helpful with the menu. We go through the entire thing, and he explains every dish to me. He recommends I order the Goat Pepper Soup, a spicy concoction with tender braised goat in a scotch-bonnet-and-tomato broth. I also get the Peanut Soup, which is nothing like what it sounds like. It is not thick and creamy. The smell is distinctly roasted peanuts, but the texture is light and watery, with a surface broken by bubbles of chili oil. This dish is popular in the northern region of Nigeria. The flavor is earthy and familiar at first; then the punch of spice is jarring. It takes a few spoonfuls to get used to the flavor combination, but once my tongue acclimates, the taste is addictive.

  Egusi is a soup made from ground melon seed; the flavor is tough and medicinal. The soup is spicy, mealy, with braised greens that remind me of collards. It feels healthy. Each dish here is served with a ball of fufu the size of my fist, kept warm by a single layer of cellophane wrapped around it. Fufu is the staple steamed bread that is eaten with pretty much everything. Made from cassava and plantain flour, it is soft, chewy, and pillowy, not unlike the dough of the Chinese steamed buns I used to eat in Chinatown as a child. It calms the mouth after every bite of spiciness—for example, of the beef stew with tomatoes and jollof rice I can’t stop eating.

  Ophelia is the chef. She is young and plump and wears a colorful head wrap. She comes out to greet us but won’t tell me how she makes her food. Patrick urges her to be careful, because I might be a spy. He laughs so loudly it disturbs everyone in the restaurant, including her husband, who is glued to the TV watching a soccer match. I tell her I’m not a journalist, but she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t want me to write about the secret ingredients she uses in her stew. We pose for a picture, but she says her recipes are her own and not for sharing. Patrick tells me to bribe her with beer. I order another round, and Patrick’s laughter fills the tiny restaurant.

  The next day, I wake up early to meet with Tunde’s sister-in-law Ronny, who has promised to teach me a few Nigerian dishes while I’m in Houston. Ronny lives in Katy, which is a bit of a drive. These invitations are always precious to me. Just as Lora opened up her home to Tunde, here in Houston, I find myself driving to a stranger’s home for no other reason than to cook food. It is humbling to witness the kindness of people. Ronny is a busy woman, but she greets me at the door as if we have known each other for years. She has a young daughter. She works from home and also runs a moving business on the side. During our cooking lesson, she is interrupted by her cell phone every few minutes.

  Ronny tells me that Nigerian cooking takes a long time, so we should get started right away. She takes out chunks of beef with cow skin and some chopped-up chicken. She starts to brown them with a little oil in a large pot. She cuts an onion, holding it in her left hand and slicing it with her right by sawing the blade of her knife toward her. This is how we do it in Nigeria, she tells me; we don’t need a cutting board. She adds Knorr beef cubes, which she gets from Lagos. They remind her of home. She sprinkles curry powder, dried thyme, and onion powder into the pot. She puts the lid on the pot and lets the meat roast on high heat. No liquid. The juices from the meat are enough to keep everything moist.

  She uses a blender to puree red bell peppers, tomatoes, and a scotch bonnet pepper with a little water. Next, she adds the raw onion and blends the mixture until it becomes a chunky liquid. She pours this into another pot and simmers it for thirty minutes. In the first pot, the meat juices have reduced, and the meat is browning. She removes the meat, adds oil, then fries the cow skin until it is crispy. She combines the meat, the skin, and the simmering tomatoes in one pot. She adjusts the seasoning and lets this cook for another thirty to forty-five minutes, until it is tender.

  I ask her if she’d play some music, and she turns on Fela. The sharp edges of the protest songs seem tamed in this quiet, pleasant house in the suburbs of Houston. I ask her about Nigeria.

  “Nigeria is a big place; we have many identities; Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Valaba, and more. But Nigeria as a whole is a fun place. You would know all of your neighbors. If you would have a maid, she would become part of your family. Our clothes are colorful and loud. And so are we.”

  Then I ask her about Tunde.

  She smiles and nods. “His parents wanted him to be a pharmacist. He was always the smartest kid in class. He was always so curious, ever since he was a young kid. We grew up as Christians, but Tunde in high school decided he would be Buddhist. He would lock himself in the bathroom and hum for hours.” She laughs out loud. “Tunde is the most honest person I know. He can never lie. His name is Akintunde, ‘the warrior that has returned.’ It is a good name for him, though in college his girlfriend called him Willie.”

  She takes out some greens, which she calls ewedu (jute leaves), and braises them with a liquid that has been boiled with stock fish and another Knorr cube. The stock fish is a salty dried fish and extremely pungent. It softens when boiled in water. The greens turn mucilaginous like okra; they’re stringy, but in a pleasing way. Ronny checks to see that the meat is tender. She spoons the ewedu onto a plate, then adds the braised meat in the center of the greens. She serves this with a ball of fufu she miraculously whips up in a pot in a matter of seconds. We sit at the kitchen counter and eat together. I ask her what she thinks of Tunde’s work, and then about race.

  “Tunde is a mystery to us, but I know he is doing what’s in his heart. He has a way of complicating things, but I respect him. For me, it is simple. I want my kids to know that being black is not a disadvantage. I don’t want to pretend that the prejudices are not real. But I want to focus on the good. My kids will be African American, yes, but that is such a vague word. I want them to know that they are Nigerian American.”

  Her daughter is sitting on the couch watching cartoons on an iPad, ignoring us but listening, too. And quietly, in the background, she is absorbing the music of Fela as it fills the house with energy. Ronny and I sit and talk for a long time, and Ronny does not look at her phone when it rings. She tells me many stories of her life both in Nigeria and here in Houston. They are too many to recall. I am both enlivened and burdened by our conversation. It is refreshing to talk so openly about race, but uncomfortable, too. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down with a white person in America and opened up a conversation about what it means to be white in America. But perhaps that is necessary, too. Maybe all the times we sit around talking about Lora’s fried chicken or Tunde’s jollof rice, we are also talking about race. Maybe that is what John T. Edge’s lasting legacy will be—to get us to confront the history of race in America through the lens of food.

  I will miss talking to Ronny, because I don’t get to talk this openly with many people. Like passengers on an airplane, we each know that we will go our separate ways, and there is safety in that. I give her and her daughter a hug. As I turn to leave, Ronny asks me if I’ve been to Sabo Suya Spot yet.

  No, I tell her. It was on my list, but I don’t have time. I’m headed to the airport.

  “You must go there. Ask for Adamu; his food is famous. His jollof rice is the best.”

  There is already a line forming when I arrive at Sabo Suya Spot. The smell of spice and roasted peanuts fills the air. Adamu is in the kitchen, and a woman is taking orders at the register. I order three kinds of suya, or skewers: beef, lamb, and kidney. They come in Styrofoam clamshell boxes with raw onion and tomatoes. I order jollof rice with ram, which is the Nigerian vernacular for goat. I talk to Adamu for a short while, and he promises to explain everything to me later by phone.

  His skewers are spicy; they get into y
our chest cavity with a gradual warming that stays with you for hours. The jollof rice is hard to put down. It seems as if each individual kernel of rice were cooked separately with tomato and spice. The kidneys are cut into thick chunks and have the aroma of bitter blood. The goat is bursting with the fruitiness that comes from a scotch bonnet pepper. My nasal passages flare up with each bite; tiny beads of sweat form at my temples. After a few more bites, I realize I haven’t been breathing. So I stop to inhale, and the cayenne goes right into my nose. I sneeze loudly. A group of men at a table next to mine laugh out loud. It happens to all of us, they say.

  The skewer of beef is from an eye of round cut, thinly sliced. It is marinated in what Adamu calls peanut cake and a mix of curry, cayenne, ginger, clove, salt, and Maggi, which is a spice cube used in many Nigerian dishes that, from what I can tell, is mostly MSG. Adamu marinates his skewers for two hours before they go on the grill. His peanut cake, he says, is the real thing, not like the fake peanut butter many competitors use. He takes raw peanuts and grinds them to a paste; then he squeezes the oil from it, saving it for another use. The peanut paste is fried until crispy, and then pulverized to a granular powder. This is the base for all Adamu’s marinades, and what gives the skewer a perfume redolent of peanuts and a taste that is mild and soothing.

  Adamu has been making this paste all his life. His father owned a company that made oils, everything from peanut to sesame. His grand-father and uncles had been kings in the Bade Emirate of Northern Nigeria. That would make him a prince. The youngest of four children, he never left his mother’s side. When she went into the kitchen to prepare dinner, he followed her, playing with seeds as she picked basketfuls of bitter greens for supper. He learned to cook from her.

  “Then I grew to love it. Now I cook better than her.”

  Trained as an agricultural engineer, Adamu moved to Austin in 1997 to work in applied materials. A few years later, he got into a car business in Nigeria, thinking it would be an easy enterprise to run while he worked in America. Within a few years, though, he lost everything. He was depressed, and unsure of what to do next. He hated his job. He worked all the time and had no friends. America was harder than he had thought.