Notes from the Louisville Yorb Lectures

Dr. gnw d Abmbl1

Babalawo and traditional cook
Thursday 21 April 2005
Topic: Food and Cooking

VEGETARIAN ALERT: Red Palm oil, used in many of these recipes is often cut with lard. Palm oil
should be RED. Some stores will sell palm oil mixed with lard as straight palm oil. This
adulterated oil looks orange, not red. The deeper the red, the purer the oil. If the oil came
direct from Nigeria it is usually OK.
Safety alert: Cassava has organic, intrinsic cyanide. If it is not prepared correctly, and you eat a lot
of it, you will suffer medical problems. Cyanide builds up in the system over time. Once is
OK, once a day is risky. Be sure to prepare casava correctly to neutralize or eliminate the
cyanide.
Clean up AS you cook. Dont leave dishes with food in them. Rinse out blender into the dish or pan
used for the blended concoction. That rinses the blender and uses the food instead of
washing it down the sink.

Dishes
akara = a bread/dumpling made from black eyed peas.
amala = a yam flour paste or gruel. Made with elubo (yam flour, see definition, see recipe)
dodo = yellow or brown plantains cooked in palm oil the same as akara.
eba = a cassava dish that looks like very solid instant mashed potatoes.
f2 = vegetable sauce
gb giri = black eyed peas soup favored by the r ango.
mn-mn = steamed black eyed peas bread (boiled pudding)
oka = a paste used in ritual. It can be made from iyan, elubo or black eyed peas.
ol l 3 = the ritual name for mn-mn, or the name of mn-mn when it is used in ritual.

The o has an accent below it also. My font set does not have it.
Both e and o have accents underneath them.
The o has an accent under it.

Recipes

black eyed peas - to prepare for any of these recipes.

Option 1- in a blender, put 1/3 of a small bag (one pound) of black eyed peas and add water up
near the top (check your machines limits). Blend at high for 4-6 seconds, pause, do it again.
After 3-5 pulses, stop blending for a minute to let it rest. Keep doing this until the liquid at
top begins to look milky. Empty it into a bowl. *Pour in some fresh water. By hand, stir it up,
knead it, agitate it. Stir it up briefly and then pour off the water. Do not hold your hand
under the water to stop the black eyed peas falling out. They will stick together and the skins
(with the black eyes) will flow our with the waste water.* repeat from * to * 20-25 times,
until there are no more black specks in the black eyed peas. It is acceptable to hand pick out
the black bits when they get scarce and dont flow out with the rinse water. The skin of black
eyed peas is edible, just not as palatable. Any skin left will change the consistency of the final
product.
Option 2 - Soak the black eyed peas 4 hours or overnight. Knead them and the skins should rub
right off. Then repeat from option 1 * to * as many times as necessary to get the last of the
black. This may be less times than option 1 suggests as the black eyed peas themselves are
not in shattered bits. The water that the beans soaked in is also drinkable.

akara (this is especially good for ebo to the egngn and Ifa, but all r like it, except Obtl
[no palm oil, hot things])
{Ingredients: black eyed peas, prepared as above,
(onion, hot pepper, garlic to taste)}
Prepare black eyed peas. Blend or chop fine (1) onion, (1) hot pepper and or (1 clove) garlic.
(Actually to taste. These amounts are approximate). Put the onion et al. in the prepared
black eyed pea. Blend to pancake batter thickness. Add in salt to taste (Baba uses about 1-2
tsp.). (NB: There is no oil in the batter itself.)
Heat about an inch of palm oil (or palm oil another vegetable oil) in a frying pan. Spoon in the
akara batter as you drop in drop biscuits. The akara should barely float on top of the oil, with
a bit above the oil.
After 5 minutes (more or less) flip/turn each individual piece. When done, take out with a slotted
spoon or slotted spatula and put on an absorbent cleanable/disposable surface (we used
paper towels). Let drain some, then eat it hot, or cold.

The center of the cooked akara should be white, not red.

Omo akara is the small bits that break off in the oil and fry separately from their parent fritter. (the
Yorb word omo = baby)
If you stir the batter right before you put it in the oil, it gets fluffier.
A variation: make a very large akara, cut it open (split like a muffin), and put fish and hot sauce
on. Put the top back on.
Another variation: Make as usual but instead of frying it, steam it like mn-mn. This makes it oil
free and acceptable to Obtl. Eat with ekuru sauce.

amala a yam flour paste or gruel. Made with elubo. Lasts for a week or two in the fridge. May
have lumps (lumps easily). Once done, it is microwavable.

Eba
{Ingredients: water and garri}
Boil water to rolling boil. Pour it into a bowl and immediately start sprinkling garri over the surface.
Stir. Keep stirring in more garri. It will become very thick and stiff with a slight shine to the
surface. Let it rest a minute while you rinse out a serving bowl with boiling water.
Dump the eba into the serving bowl, scraping it out. Wash your hands. Flip it out into your hand
(flip the bowl with your hand over the top of the bowl. The eba will drop into your hand in
one lump. Put it back into the serving bowl with the together, shiny side up. Dish it up. Fix
eko and iyan the same way. Eko becomes jelly like, not mashed potato like.

Egussi (Obtl and Oun like)

Cook in boiling water . Stir from time to time. Its like cream of wheat.

Ekuru sauce
{Ingredients: onion, hot pepper, garlic, tomato
protein (meat, fish) [use palm oil only if not for Obtl]}
Cook vegetables 20 minutes (make soup base). Wash meat or fish very well. Rehydrate any dried
meat/fish. Cook or fry meat/fish in one piece, or cook dried fish in flakes. Put the meat into
the vegetable base. Cook for 20 minutes. Add palm oil and cook for another 15 minutes. Add
okra if desired in last 5 - 10 minutes.

l
To the tomato veggie mix of f or il sauce, add dehydrated shrimp.

f (Vegetable sauce)
cook onion. tomato, pepper till done then add greens briefly. Serve

Gb giri ( angos soup) [pronounced beg-ger- ri]

{ingredients: prepared black eyed peas,
red palm oil between a half cup to a cup total,
2 tomatoes, 2 hot peppers, 1 onion, salt to taste}
Use a wooden spoon for this.
Prepare black eyed peas as above. Pour into a pot. Add enough water to allow boiling. (one keeps
adding water throughout, so there is no amount) Bring to a rolling boil over high heat. If a
rolling boil cannot be maintained, it will take at least twice as long. Let it boil alone for about
five minutes, and then start stirring hard, so the wooden spoon cleans the bottom of the
pan, preventing sticking. This deep stirring is called either join to the earth or tie it to the
ground.
Boil for 20 - 25 minutes if boil maintained, otherwise, until done / tender. Keep adding water as
needed to maintain the boil. Occasionally let it rest [actually for me, let my arm rest ;-)]
Blend or chop fine 1 onion, 2 tomatoes and 2 hot pepper in enough water to cover. When it is
nearly finished (to taste), pour them into the boiling black eyed peas. Rinse the blender or
cutting board into the pot. Add more water.
When it is cooked, add about a quarter cup of red palm oil. Add salt to taste (Baba uses about 2
TBSP.). Keep stirring. Add approximately another 1/3 cup red palm oil a bit at a time. Keep
adding palm oil until it looks right or tastes right.
Turn the heat down to simmer. Let it rest. It is done when the oil rises to the top and it looks
glossy. Pour into a warm serving bowl.

Il sauce (okra)
Wash the okra. Cut away the tip away from the stem. Discard. cut in diagonal wedges about as big
as cubing ( in. wedged cubes). If the okra is hard or rubbery, it is no good. It is probably
too old.
Put water to fire. Chop up salsa vegetables fine (onion, pepper, tomatoes, etc.)[or blend them].
Put into water. Add tomato puree or tomato paste. [You are basically making a tomato soup
stock] Add mushrooms early.
Add greens late. Add okra last. Okra needs to be cooked less than 10 minutes.

mn-mn (the egngn and all r like, except Obtl who doesnt like palm oil)
{ingredients: broad leaves or foil, prepared black
eyed peas, palm oil, 2 peppers, 1 onion, salt to taste}
Make packets out of broad, tough leaves (banana, palm, large grape) or aluminum foil. For foil, tear
off about 8 - 10 inches of foil. Fold in half. Fold both sides sealing it into a pouch. Use thick
folds ( in. or more) to keep the mixture inside throughout steaming. Boil in bags were
suggested, but noone has tried them.
Prepare 1 onion and 2 hot peppers (chop fine or blend) pour in prepared black eyed peas. Blend
together to liquify or puree. It should end up finer than grits, with no perceivable grains
(touch it).
Pour the mixture into a medium sized bowl. Add enough water to reach a thin waffle batter
consistency. Pour in from 2 TBSP. to 1/4 cup palm oil. Keep adding palm oil and stirring until
it is a dark yellow color (light orange). Add salt to taste (Baba uses 2 TBSP. Or about half as
much as the palm oil to date. Stir constantly. Add about cup more palm oil. The mixture
should be about pumpkin colored, with no lumps.
Spoon about 2 t 3 spoonfuls or a 1/4 cup of the mixture into the prepared packets. Add whatever
you have decided to put in (if anything). Pour in another 2-3 spoonfuls of the mixture. Fold
the top down twice. Be careful not to let it drip down the inside as you fill it, and watch for
leaks, which will spread batter all over the bottom of your unwatched pan.
Place in a pan with the fold side down and the top folds at the top of the pan. Add water to almost
floating. Put on high heat.
lid
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water level

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Cover the pan. Heat 30 minutes. Check regularly to make sure there is enough water to steam.
It is done when an opened packet holds together as one piece.
One variation - For seven lives mn-mn , fry in oil; egg, beef, liver, dried snail, dried fish,
dried shrimp and dried crayfish. Prepare the mn-mn, spoon in half. Add the meat mixture
and finish filling the packet with mn-mn batter.
Prepared mn-mn can be kept in the fridge to boil later. It lasts that way a week.

Word list:
Dishes
akara = a bread/dumpling made from black eyed peas.
amala = a yam flour paste or gruel. Made with elubo (yam flour, see definition, see recipe)
dodo = yellow or brown plantains cooked in palm oil the same as akara.
eba = a cassava dish that looks like very solid instant mashed potatoes.
f4 = vegetable sauce
gb giri = black eyed peas soup favored by the r ango.
mn-mn = steamed black eyed peas bread (boiled pudding)
oka = a paste used in ritual. It can be made from iyan, elubo or black eyed peas.
Ol l 5 = the ritual name for mn-mn, or the name of mn-mn when it is used in ritual.

M aterials
black eyed peas flour. This does not work in these recipes as prepared black eyed peas. It is old
and the wrong consistency and the egngn wont touch it.
g = cassava WARNING DO NOT buy the very fine powder. It may not have had the cyanide
taken out. In order to eat it safely, you grate it into water, put it in a straw bag with a rock
on top to keep it down. Let it ferment a few days and drain off the water. Then you dry it,
and take it to a mill to be ground. If it has been processed correctly it has a slightly sour
taste. If it doesnt taste sour, it is dangerous. The Yorb learned about cassava from the
Native Americans in Brazil. It is a new plant that has not found a place in ritual food. The
oria do not eat cassava.
egussi = melon seeds ground up. (pumpkin, squash etc.)
elubo = yam flour. Skinned, boiled, dried and pounded. Adds iron and lowers carbohydrate level.
Elubo is stickier and darker than iyan (yam flour). It looks rather grainy. [skin the yams, cut a
lot of them into small pieces and put them in a big iron pot. Apply fire, but not hot (can
touch the bottom of the pan briefly without getting burned). simmer/cook/parboil for three
days. On the third day, take it out of the pot and spread the pieces on a cloth on the ground
in the sun. Do it when no rain is expected for several days. When fully dried the pieces are
very hard. Pound it or take it to a mill to be ground.]

Both e and o have accents underneath them.

The o has an accent under it.

garri (farofa in Brazil) cassava powder

il = see okra
i u = yam
iyan - yam flour, skinned, boiled, pounded. [skin the yams, boil large pieces in a pot for an hour or
so. Pound it in a mortar.] For an ebo to Yemoja, the iyan must be made with a wooden
spoon. made the same way as garri.
Okra = a green vegetable, shaped rather like a halopeno pepper. needs to be harvested every five
days. If not, it gets too old and shouldnt be used in cooking.
Palm oil = palm oil should be red. In anything besides full summer with no air conditioning, palm
oil must be set in hot water to liquify it before use. Some stores will sell palm oil mixed with
lard as straight palm oil, this oil looks orange, not red. The deeper the red, the purer the oil.
If the oil came direct from Nigeria it is usually OK. NB: I believe that this is not an intentional
deception, but a cultural thing. New World cultures EXPECT palm oil to be part lard. This is
just like when an Italian tells you to put ricotta cheese in something, they expect you to
know that you mix it with egg and spices before it is real ricotta cheese.
plantains = Flour can be made from green plantains treated the same way as elubo. See also
dodo.
white yam flour = has been chemically treated and powdered.

Random Notes
Scattered through the lecture/class

There are three foods in each Yorb meal.

Eba (carbohydrates) [iyan or amala or g]
vegetable sauce(s) and
a separate meat/fish sauce

If you eat mn-mn instead of typical American food every day, you will look perpetually
young. It is light on the digestive system (good for digestive disorders) and great on your teeth (if
you dont load it with sugar (ugh)

Eating lots of hot peppers is good for your thyroid. Hot pepper can even make a goiter or
other throat swelling diminish and /or go away.

rnmil takes care of addicts. Help them (addicts) but dont allow them on your premises.

Safety alert: Cassava has organic, intrinsic cyanide. If it is not prepared correctly, and you
eat a lot of it, you will suffer medical problems. Cyanide builds up in the system over time. Once is
OK, once a day is risky. Be sure to prepare casava correctly to neutralize or eliminate it.

All the food we eat should be medicine. It should be working to make us healthy. It should
be possible to en-liven it by chants/invocations. It should be pure.

Dont dish food up directly from the fire. This spoils not only the medicine of the food, but
also the medicine already in your body. Move it off the fire. It can remain in the pot.

Oun likes vegetables (spinach, collard greens and the like, leafy green) and okra

Obtl does not like (or cant have) palm oil.

Yemoja loves onions.

Ogun does not like things, like sauces, which have been cooked in water over a fire. Fry or
bake things for Ogun. Ogun especially likes baked yam, baked sweet potato and roasted corn on
the cob (maize).

Any recipe that contains palm oil is done when the oil floats to gathers at the top of the
sauce.

Dont add salt at the table.