Fried-Plantains-Platanos-Fritos-No-Puede

 

Stella strolled into the grocery store, one hand clutching the cell phone glued to her left ear, while the other hand fiddled with the contents of her handbag.

Where was the list?

Rummaging among receipts of past purchases and other pieces of paper, she finally emerged triumphant.  In her right hand, she held the prize: a short, handwritten list of items she absolutely had to buy that evening.

Not that she couldn’t remember three basic items without a list.  Far from it.  But for whatever reason, writing it down, just the process alone, all that fuss made the goal a little more special: a home-cooked meal of plantain pottage with bits of nchuawun* added to give it a little something extra.

In place of nchuawun, or ahimu as some people called it, which was clearly unavailable in this small town, she would have to make do with basil.  This pottage recipe was one a friend had sent her earlier in the week, after Stella had casually mentioned that April was her “month of plantain.”

“What do you mean?” Etunu had asked in disbelief.  “Other people are declaring that April is their month of supernatural abundance, but na plantain you dey face. Why?”

Stella chuckled and her reply was:

“Ehn, it’s my month of supernatural abundance … and plantain.  I’ll be trying out different Nigerian plantain recipes this month.”

“All month long?” said Etunu, unable to conceive how or why anyone would want to punish herself in this manner.  “After dodo**, and maybe boiled plantain and stew … or pata-pata, boiled plantain and egg, what else?”

“I’ll try out a new recipe every Tuesday and if I feel like it, on the weekend too.  As many recipes as I can find,” Stella said cheerfully, sounding uber confident of her plan.

“–Or can stand,” Etunu scoffed.  “I’m sure you’ll come across some you won’t like,” she said, even though at that very second, she couldn’t think of any plantain recipe that she believed should be banned forever.

“Ehn … That’s fine.  But don’t knock it till you try it.  That’s what I say.”

“Okay o.  But why plantain? Why not … Banana?” Etunu asked innocently.

“Bana what?! Banana? You and who?” said Stella, not even trying to hide her disgust, “You mean plantain’s less mature, less beloved little brother? Or cousin?  I hate banana.  The smell alone … Yuk! It turns my stomach!”

“You’re just weird.  How can you like plantain and hate banana? At the same time?” said Etunu in the same tone of voice she might have used to ask why anyone would cherish a unibrow.

“I don’t know jo! It just is.  It’s been that way since I was little.  Plantains rule, Bananas suck!”

Their conversation had drifted to TV shows before they called it a day.

Now, it was Tuesday evening in the second week of April.  Stella was still bent on keeping her resolution for April: a plantain-fest.  However, after running through her little stash the week before, she was back at her local grocery store to buy the main ingredient needed for the pottage she planned to make for dinner: ripe, yellow and hopefully, big plantains.

But it was not Etunu on the other end of the phone line that evening.  It was Stella’s mother.

“Mummy, I can’t come home this weekend,” she said as she made her way towards the fresh produce aisle. Lots of bright, inviting colors drew her eyes towards the fruits and vegetables arranged in heaps, side by side.  Over here, green, red, orangey-yellow apples sat beside bright orange oranges and mandarins; over there, large green watermelons in their own large box, not too far from a heap of hairy, green kiwis.  In short, there was an assorted display of fruits and vegetables such as one might find in a typical American grocery store.

Just before she reached the spot where the plantains were stacked, it occurred to her that she was missing something: a shopping basket.

A quick glance towards the entrance of the store where the little green shopping baskets were usually stationed, told her all she needed to know: there was not a single basket available.  That left her with just one option: use a shopping cart instead.

“Stella, what were you saying?” her mother asked as she walked back to the entrance.

“I can’t come home this weekend.”

“Why? You’ve started again o, Stella.  I know why you’re staying away.  It’s because of Obinna, isn’t it?”

“Obi who? No, Mummy, I don’t–”

Her mother cackled so loud that Stella looked around nervously, wondering if her cell phone was loud enough for anyone else to hear her mother’s high-pitched laughter.  No one else was in her immediate vicinity.  Phew!

“You think I was born yesterday?” said her mother.  “Look, Stella, Obinna is a good boy and we know his family.  He’s not a stranger at all at all.”

“Okay, Mummy,” Stella began, reminding herself that at 28, her mother was and would always be older than her and therefore needed to be respected regardless of how she expressed her opinion.  “First of all, Obinna is not a boy.  He’s a grown man.  Secondly, he’s a stranger to me.  I’ve never met him before.”

“But that doesn’t matter now.  As long as we know his family, that’s what matters.  Once you meet him, you’ll see what we see in him,” said her mother sweetly.

Stella shook her head and rolled her eyes.  With the way her mother was pushing this “Obinna agenda,” she wondered if the woman had not already ordered wedding invitations with his name and her name on them, announcing the upcoming union of their two families.

“I wouldn’t put it past this woman o,” Stella thought to herself.  “Maybe I should go there this weekend sef, just to put an end to all this … this Obinna-lization of my life.”

After all, her parents lived just two hours away from the small town she had called home for a year and a half.

“So you’re coming, abi?” said her mother.

Stella’s mother’s voice forced her out of the monologue she was having inside her head.  By now she had reached the shopping carts and was trying in vain to disentangle one cart from its shiny metal brothers.

“Hello, Stella? Are you there?”

“Mummy, hold on! I need to … Let me put you on hold–”

“You said?”

“Hold on … Hold on!”

And without waiting for another response, she pressed the green button on her phone screen and then locked it before hurriedly dumping it into the abysmal darkness of her handbag.

With two hands free, she resumed her struggle to deliver her chosen cart from the love affair it was clearly having with the other carts, seeing as it was nested cozily into them.

“Hey, let me get that for you.”

The male voice behind her startled her.  As she turned towards the sound of the voice, and before she could say, “Let’s fry dodo!” he had freed the shopping cart and released it to her care.

“Thank you!” she gushed, noting the stranger’s cuteness, bald head and facial hair notwithstanding. He smiled and walked away pushing a cart of his own.

As she picked up her phone to resume her conversation with her mother, she thought there was something odd, yet strangely familiar about the way he spoke.  But her mother did not let her process that thought.

“Stella, Obinna is a doctor.  He can take care of–”

“Mummy, I can take care of myself.  I didn’t spend all those years in school to be at any man’s mercy.  Besides, what do I have in common with this guy? We’re from the same town.  And so?”

Her mother gave a long sigh and then said:

“So, at 28, you think you have plenty options, ehn? What about children?”

“Mummy, can we not do this right now?” Stella snarled.

And seizing the opportunity to change the topic, she quickly added:

“You won’t believe how fine these plantains are?”

“Ehn ehn … Is that so?” said her mother in a disinterested voice. “Is it plantain you will marry, ehn, Stella?”

Clearly, her mother was itching to re-visit the Obinna matter again, but Stella did not take the bait.  Plantains would remain the focus of their discussion for the rest of the evening.  Stella was determined.

“Ah, Mummy, you need to see these plantains! Big, fat ones! Chei! See this one,” said Stella, grabbing another ripe, decidedly large plantain and throwing it into her cart.  “They hid the big ones under–” she said, destroying the arrangement of the plantains in the box in a bid to score larger ones.  She pulled the ones she desired from underneath the pile, and beamed like someone who had just reached the summit of a great mountain.

Stella was so deeply engrossed in her plantain hunt that she did not notice that someone had been watching her earnestly and was slowly inching closer and closer to her.  He was beside the cilantro, parsley and fresh herbs.  After picking two bunches of cilantro, and tossing them into a clear plastic bag, he re-focused his attention on the young woman who was busy digging through the box of plantains in search of the bigger, fatter, yellow ones.  At 58 cents for each plantain, regardless of weight or size, Stella was determined to get good value for her money.

He stood there watching her, inadvertently hearing bits and pieces of her conversation with the person on the phone.  But he was not really interested in what she was saying.  He was listening instead to her voice, noting with deep interest, the inflections in her voice, the way she pronounced certain words, switching effortlessly between English and what was clearly a non-English language.

That language … He knew it very well.  He had heard it before. In fact, he spoke it.

Worried that if he did not speak up now, she would disappear, maybe forever, he walked up to her and said:

“Hi.”

Stella looked up from her plantain picking frenzy.  Wasn’t this the guy who assisted her with the carts just minutes before? What did he want?

Keeping her eyes on him and motioning for him to hold on, she said to her mother:

“I’ll have to call you back, Mummy.”

“Ehen … Okay, I’ll be expecting you o.”

“Okay.  Bye, Mummy.”

“Bye, Bye o.”

Ending the call and throwing her phone into her handbag, she responded to the stranger.

“Hi.  Can I help you?”

He chuckled.  She frowned.  Was this guy well?

“You’re a Nigerian, right?”

He framed it as a question, but it sounded more like an affirmation, like he was absolutely sure of it.

And then it hit her.  She had heard the hint of an accent when he spoke to her that first time. It was a Nigerian accent, admittedly well-masked under the cloak of an almost perfect American accent.

“Yes, yes.  I am,” said Stella in shock.  “How did you know?”

“I overheard you on the phone with–”

“Oh! My mum.  Dead giveaway, right?” she said, laughing nervously.

“Pardon my manners.  I’m Nduka, and you are …” he said, extending his hand towards her.  For a moment, she stared at it, wondering what he would do if she sniffed his hand first before shaking it.  No, that would be highly inappropriate.  She would just shake it instead.

“Stella,” she said, shaking his hand gingerly.

“Oh, Stella! Nice to meet you.  I moved down here a month ago.  I work for an IT company downtown.  Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to meet any Nigerians here.  Small town, you know.”

“Very small town. You know when I first moved here, they didn’t carry plantains here.  But the plantain-eating population has grown, so things have changed … Are changing,” said Stella with a slight nod towards the plantains in her cart.

“That’s good.  So, what are you planning to do with all these?” he asked casting his eyes on the plantains she had rescued from the box.  “Party?”

“Me? Oh no … I’m just trying something new.  Naija recipes and stuff.”

“Really? I’m doing something similar actually.  Trying out Italian recipes this week.”

“You don’t say?” said Stella, smiling with her eyes.

Just then, her phone rang.  It was her mother calling her back.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” said Stella apologetically.  Nduka nodded and waited for her nearby.  “Hello, Mummy?”

“Stella, you didn’t call me back, so–”

“Yes, Mummy.  I was talking to someone …” began Stella, and then almost bit her tongue when she realized her mistake.  Her mother would not back down now.

“Who? In that your village?”

“He’s a Nigerian, Mummy,” said Stella, and she could have kicked herself for adding that tiny detail. More questions were bound to follow.  And they did.

“Ehen? Is he single? Check his hand now.  Do you see a ring? What’s his name?”

Feeling embarrassed all of a sudden because the object of their discussion was within earshot, Stella hurriedly said:

“Mummy, I’ll have to call you when I get home.”

“You better call o.”

And then, she hung up.

Blushing deeply, she turned to Nduka and said:

“That was my mother, again.  Sorry to–”

“Oh, don’t apologize.  Your mum is good.  Mine ehn? Give her 5 minutes, just 5 minutes and she will extract your whole family history from you down to the 12th generation! She will start with your village, then your local government area, then what diseases are in your family … In fact, by the time she’s done, she would have gathered enough information to fill a book!”

Stella laughed.

“That sounds like something my grandma would do.  She’s not subtle about it all.”

“My mother doesn’t send o! And the funny thing is you won’t realize just how much you’ve told her until after the fact,” said Nduka smiling.

“Maybe it’s a gift, then,” said Stella, giggling.

“You could say so,” said Nduka.  Then, he paused as if considering what to say next.  And when he had made up his mind, he said in a serious tone:

“Hey, hope you don’t mind.  Can I get your number? I’d like to call you sometime.”

“Sure.  That would be nice,” she said.

They exchanged numbers and before they said “Goodnight,” had made plans to meet up for lunch that Saturday.

As Stella drove home, she chuckled to herself.

“Imagine! If not for these plantains, I would never have met Nduka today.”

Turning slightly towards the front passenger seat where the single bag of groceries rested, she whispered:

“Dear Plantains, thank you! Because of you, yours truly has a date this weekend.”

And Stella kept cheesing all the way home.

– THE END –

——————-

*Nchuawun = Scent leaf in Igbo; also called Efinrin in Yoruba

**Dodo = Fried Plantains

*Image Credit: Mommie Cooks on Pinterest

 

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