Nni Olar: The Precious Food of the Anioma People

 Nni Olar: The Precious Food of the Anioma People

- Emeka Esogbue

Were you ever served Nni Olar? Well, if you are a bit aged, spent your days in any Anioma home as a parent or relatively young within the period of discussion and spent the early days of your life with your grandparents in any Anioma home back in the 'village,' congratulations to you because you will comprehend fully what I mean with this story. Nni Olar was never a special delicacy of the Anioma people but actually any remainder of food that should not be discarded because it must be eaten the following day. It was then a pleasing food with rarity to the Anioma people. 

Unlike today, Anioma's parents rarely threw away foods that had undergone the effects of time. They simply covered them up inside the plates to awaiting the following day. All that they did was to hurriedly simmer the food again on the stove and it would be eaten again satisfactorily, especially by children hurrying to school. 

Then you hear, "je ga ebulu nni fordu nyau daa na oku ka Ibulu li e."

On a lighter mood, it has been sarcastically said that children brought up by their grandparents that fed on Nni Olar were blessed with 'native sense.'

Meat or no meat; fish or no fish, the food, once off the fire, is consumed immediately but there's another angle to it. It gets so sweet; more delicious than the first day on fire so that the eater gets stuck consuming it with school uniform on. 

Next, you hear "Igbawai" on the back with an angrier voice of:

"Ibeyi ncha jebesi wo akwukwor inor du na eli nni olar. Ngwa yi pu  zie after ka inordu na Unor."

By personal experience, I was once rescued by Nne Enwelim and Nne Marsi (Mercy), two motherly and neighbouring kinswomen in our Umuafene. They strongly delivered me and my immediate younger sister from the grip of my paternal grandmother. We had forgotten that it was Monday morning and had already worn our uniforms but we went gulping up the Nni Olar of yesterday with the sound of swallowing indicating fear. 

Once Esungwe, my Sacred Heart Elementary School teacher rode past our house on his bicycle, his movement reminded my grandmother of our presence in our perfunctory mud kitchen under the influence of Nni Ilar and the sort of the beating that followed was better imagined than explained until we were both rescued. Until then, we were eating and quarreling over who was in the act of 'igbabuli nni,' one eating the Nni Akpu more than the other.

Interestingly, nni olar was never refrigerated but simply covered in plates. Yet, there were no sicknesses or diseases of today. The people of the generation were happy and healthy and also lived longer. Now,  the children of today would rather forbid Nni Olar with the feeling of poison.

This as one commentator has said, confirms that an individual can live in two or more worlds before death. The advent of refrigerators, and the preponderance of its usage by almost all social and economic class, effectively rest the incidence of "Nni Ola".

Emeka, thank you.

What a life of the past!

Responses:

So interesting,had the experience too, though I didn't grow up in my town Akwukwu Igbo kingdom but while still with my grandma I enjoyed that privileged and it was more sweeter with ujuju soup cooked with busy meat and mangala fish,the ofe akwu either with usumade or unuoku,(banga soup) the ofe nsala (good) the agbonor soup(pofiality) and ofe egusi,then you wake up early to go to the stream before going to school, you pick udala on the way (star apple) then rice was a special meal, eaten mostly on Sunday,then the stew was special, good onions and peppers and tomatoes,not like the fertilizer type of today, I missed good old days, people becomes your friends when they noticed they cooking rice and stew in your house, you become the queen of the play ground,then guys don't wash their hands after eating the rice, you keep smelling your hands to remind you of the delicious rice you just eaten and it was also an evidence for others to know you had rice and stew, you will tell your friends (si ke akam,gi ka ona esi,

Osikapa).

- Winnie Ugbana, Akwukwu-Igbo

Emeka nwanem.

I was filled with pangs of swallowing  of saliva while reminiscing on the days of yo when nni olar was a relish of the morning breakfast. Some nni olar were deliberately left over by mothers and grand mothers wrapped up with leaves and cloths and stored away inside the clay pots that served as the warmer. This sense of preservative were also applied to food that were prepared ealy by mothers who had to cook early in the day because she had to keep to an eke events like burials and other such events. It was always a pleasure to return home to such prevented food from school, after walking barefooted on the heated sun backed etum that was the surface of every street of Igbuzo in those days. Back to nni olar. Soups of the days past were cooked to be consumed in one day. The remnants are kept to be warmed up in the earthen pot of soup which never lost its heat untill the soup is used up. Emaka,  kerosine stoves were luxry in those days. Nni olar used to be food that was not always plenty, hence the rush to have good slice caused many brotherly  fights as a result of igbabu nni and ino akpani. Not only have we lost the culture of nni olar. We have also lost the culture of those spicy soups that were cooked from the comforts of the unor ogo in the farms. Soups like ose ani, ujuju soup, etc, soups that were cooked with root spices, fish (mangala), bush meat, Isha okpotokpo etc. What about the upi, oil + anunungwe sources to eat yam.

The great ifenjioku egwusi soup and nsala soup. The olden days are past, gone with their natural foods that never caused cancer, fibroid, prostate and all the lifestyle ailments that are associated with the present days fertilizer grown foods and refrigeration.

Gone are those days when our farmlands were preserved and not sold off to strangers.

May God help and bless our Anioma land

- Paul Okonji, Ibusa

Wow! Emmy u brought me down memory lane! Growing up wit my grand and great grandma at Abakaliki was fun. There's a way they warm their nni akpu ola. They put it directly into d pot, place it d fire and continue pressing it until it's hot. U'll hear, "umuakaa bianu g'ebulu nni unu n'anu gaama n'oku". Then it was d survival of d fittest among d children. Especially if it is ofe okwulu wa ji ugbugba daa n'oku.

My God, I miss those good old days. Tnx Pen Master for diverting our attention from political talks for a moment wit dis post

- Nneka Edith Obiechie, Ibusa

Those earthenware pots add flavour to soups. Especially *ofe okwuru* .

 *Nni olar* is a ritual best understood by those who were raised by it. No literature to describe the stimulates to the palate.

Just like trying to describe to a non initiate what *igbabu nni* or *ino akpa-nni* is, the fun, the suicidal risk. Mbanu!

My Yoruba friend, a lady, once told me she thought *mangala* was just a joke until recently. I told her that fish could cause world war in the market and homes.

Reminding me of *anunungwe* + oil + yam, cloud nine! Hot boiled *ji oko, alufulu*........steaming  and soaked in red oil with condiments, your saliva is hitting the floor as the yam navigates it's burial. 

civilization is a curse as well. 

- Dr. Enenmor, Ibusa

Wooowww...beautiful piece of social writing. This confirms that an individual can live in two or more worlds before death. The advent of refrigerators, and the preponderance of its usage by almost all social and economic class, effectively rest the incidence of "Nni Ola".

Emeka, thank you.

- Sir Luka Igbonoba, Ibusa