What do you eat with pounded yam?
Question
What do you eat with pounded yam? So I have learned about this food from Nigeria but what can I serve alongside? My question may probably sound out of place but I am new to the whole Nigerian food thing and Nigerian cooking so I will be asking some really crazy questions in the coming weeks.
Answers ( 7 )
Pounded yam can be eaten with egusi soup, ogbono soup, edikaikong soup, melon peppersoup, okro soup or even stew.
In fact its depends on the type of soup you want to serve it with. Pounded yam is one of the foods in “swallow category”, In Nigeria, swallows are served with soups. There are other swallows like eba and fufu.
Soup is what you eat with pounded yam and we have a plethora of Nigerian soups to choose from. Most Nigerian foods complement one another, they are always served in pairs.
That is why we have rice and stew, akara and break, eba and soup etc. Pounded yam is just like eba or fufu, we call them “swallows” in Nigeria and they are served with anyone of the many soups that are made and eaten in Nigeria.
Pounded yam is served with:
Egusi soup
Afang Soup
Oha soup
edikaikong
Atama soup
Okro soup
Ogbono soup
Ofe Onugbu
Ofe Anara
There are over 50 different soups that are made by different Nigerian ethnic groups, anyone of them could be eaten with pounded yam.
I personally prefer to eat my pounded yam with egusi soup or oha soup. But I am certain the case is different with every individual.
Pounded yam can be eaten with any other kind of soup in Nigeria, although pounded yam serves as a special food to some tribe which is tied to a particular kind of soup and usually served to special kind of people.
Among certain ethnic groups, pounded yam and nsala soup is given to visitors.
Pounded yam is served in Nigerian homes with Nigerian soups. To answer your question appropriately, pounded yam is eaten with soup, stew or even pepersoup.
However, there is a variation of pounded yam that combines yam and ripe plantain. It is a delicasy in River state Nigeria. I think the name is onunu. In this case, it is served with catfish peppersoup.
Onunu is however not categorized as “Swallow”, since it is chewable.
Aside this variation, the popular pounded yam we all know and love is eaten with nigerian soups like egusi and ogbono soup.
With your hand, you cut a portion, dip into the soup, then swallow.
Yam is the king of all crops especially to those in the Igbo ethnic group of Nigeria, it is one of the crops cultivated in Nigeria. Pounded yam is just yam that underwent the process of pounding.
It can be eaten with so many types of soups and other accessories depending on how you want to eat it.
Pounded yam can be eaten with egusi soup, edikaikong, bitter leaf soup and so many other traditional soups too numerous to mention. It can also be eaten with sauce such as vegetable sauce.
So I purchased some yam they were not yet so tasteful, we only eat dried and old yam in my house, if it has not gotten dried and old, it won’t have that sugary taste. So I just make pounded yam out of them.
Here is pounded yam and oha soup. OMG!
Pounded Yam can be eaten with soups such egusi, groundnut, oha, afang, bitterleaf, edikaikong, gbegirl and the list goes on and on.
Some soups are more famous to a particular tribe like oha and afang are made more among the Igbo’s while gbegirl is very popular among the Yoruba’s. Others are considerably accepted by every Nigerian and considered general soups like Egusi but prepared slightly differently the different ethnic groups.
Pounded yam is in the family of swallows, there is hardly any Nigeria that doesn’t a combination of either pounded yam or eba (swallows) and soup.