yaji

I mean this vindaloo was nowhere near the red in colour and in heat hot stews of Iya Modinat in Idi Araba that I used to gulp down early in the morning over hot white rice with ewa and dodo and yet here I was panting over my PC like my English friend encountering Mallam Sani's yaji for the first time....pathetic!

TGIFriday, hunting library books,loving your neighbour and spice-o-meters uknaija 2005

I mean this vindaloo was nowhere near the red in colour and in heat hot stews of Iya Modinat in Idi Araba that I used to gulp down early in the morning over hot white rice with ewa and dodo and yet here I was panting over my PC like my English friend encountering Mallam Sani's yaji for the first time....pathetic!

Archive 2005-10-01 uknaija 2005

In the writer's house, they had two kinds of yaji.

The New Yorker Mohammed Naseehu Ali 2011

Not until the writer's late teen-age years, after his mother died, did his grandmother reveal the secret ingredient in his father's yaji.

The New Yorker Mohammed Naseehu Ali 2011

But secrecy surrounded the other yaji, kept under lock and key in a glass cupboard in the living room.

The New Yorker Mohammed Naseehu Ali 2011

In the Hausa Muslim community of Kumasi, Ghana, where the writer grew up, yaji was the king of spice mixtures.

The New Yorker Mohammed Naseehu Ali 2011

The writer's mother would add a teaspoonful of this yaji to anything the writer's father ate.

The New Yorker Mohammed Naseehu Ali 2011

The container for the regular yaji sat on a pantry shelf.

The New Yorker Mohammed Naseehu Ali 2011