I’ve tried, believe me. I’ve gone to African stores hunting for the freshest bitter leaves, substituted with frozen spinach when I couldn’t find them, and even tried ordering online but it’s never quite the same.

I remember the mornings in my mother’s kitchen— the smell of ogiri (fermented locust beans), the way we’d wash bitter leaves just enough to take the sting off but still keep their taste. The ede (coco yam) would thicken the soup perfectly, and the stock from the goat or beef carried the kind of depth that no store-bought broth could ever match. With each stir, each sprinkle of spice, and every rising aroma, I felt the heartbeat of my mother’s kitchen around me

Here abroad, I have all the ingredients — technically. But there’s something about the water, the atmosphere, the rhythm of cooking with family around that I can’t bottle or ship in a box. The soup comes out a little off, a little flatter in taste, missing that familiar warmth and soul that only cooking in my mother’s kitchen could give it.

Making Ofe Onugbu here is now as much about memory as it is about food. When I cook it, I’m transported back to those Sunday lunches, the laughter, the stories, the teasing my siblings threw at each other over who would get the first spoonful. Sometimes I even share my ofe onugbu with my friends abroad who’ve never had it, and I watch them hesitate at the “bitter” and wonder if they’ll ever understand.

It’s frustrating but also beautiful. Because in every pot I cook here, I’m keeping a piece of home alive. It’s imperfect, yes, but it’s mine. And every taste reminds me why some things like family, culture, and the flavor of home don’t fully translate, and maybe they’re not meant to.

For anyone else living abroad, I’d love to know: which dish from home do you keep trying to recreate, and why is it never quite the same?