Nigerians yearn for native food


If you are a Nigerian and wish to savour your country’s delicacies in Doha, you may find it very tough to cater to your taste buds.

Since typical Nigerian dishes are very rich and spicy foods, having different varieties and flavours, it is almost impossible to find them in the local restaurants.

As a result, many Nigerians have compromised with the situation and taken to alternative foods.

Talking to Qatar Tribune, Gbenga Aladesanmi a Nigerian music teacher, said, “My eating habit has changed because I don’t have access to ‘iyon’ (pounded yam).

There are no Nigerian food stores here.

So we have to make do with what we have in locally available food items.

This has resulted in poor and, at times, unhealthy eating habits because most of us are not so good at cooking healthy meals.

Instead, we prefer to eat fast foods.” He said if at all the food items of their country are available, they are very expensive.

“The cost of a yam tuber range from above QR150 and to elaborately prepare a meal of pounded yam you need two to three tubers, which is expensive.

Most of the time, it is easier to pick up your phone and dial a meal that would be delivered at your doorsteps.

The absence of a Nigerian restaurant affects my eating habit.

I have taken to local foods like kubus which is different from my Agege bread.” Commenting on the absence of Nigerian delicacies and what he misses about home, Bayo Anjorin, said, “During many evenings, I think of the food, not just any type of food, but the type that could be eaten or enjoyed in the company of my native friends and family over some drinks, complemented by a football game on TV and spiced up with arguments and debates over the different aspects of our national life.

I miss amala and gbegiri, not to forget ‘ewa agoyin’.

These are meals I can’t find here, even at family kitchens.” Ibrahim Yusuff, an IT expert, said, “I hope to relish eating a typical Nigerian delicacy when we celebrate our national day on October 1. There are food stores, Indians, Filipinos, Nepalis and other nationalities, but none for Nigerians.

May be the cost of setting up a food store is something enormous that the average Nigerian food vendor can’t afford.” Since the Nigerian expatriates miss their authentic delicacies, they are always on the look out to go back to their country during the vacations to enjoy a good meal.