In Nigeria, foods like Hamburgers, Fries, fried chicken, pizza, typically cost more than the average Nigerian foods. They are considered some sort of “luxury” food. Foods that the average Nigerian would mostly buy maybe to celebrate an event, or an outing but never on a whim, or at least not always on a whim without careful thought. Especially because of how much they cost in comparison to other foods like rice and beans at Iya’s shop that would even fill up your stomach faster. 

Meanwhile in places like the United States, foods like hamburgers and pizzas are way cheaper than organic foods. If anything, it’s the organic foods like rice and beans that are considered luxury foods and are typically slightly costlier. 

Why then, in our country where we have these organic foods in excess, we treat the white man’s food as superior. A show of luxury would be to celebrate with a plate of sushi rather than steaming hot Oha soup. Dare I say, in addition to a sneaky root in classism, it is also a sort of cultural imperialism where we undermine what is natural to us Nigerians, easily accessible and enjoyable as inferior to the white man’s food and method of cooking it.

This analysis doesn’t come oblivious of personal food preferences and the rate of dollar to naira that naturally makes things not from our soil more expensive. It tilts towards why it has infiltrated much of our cuisine. Much of our food culture and delicacy. Why we associate those foods with higher class or caliber. If it’s expensive to produce, why produce them even. Why not channel more creativity into making our organic foods come to life. Take for example, bean balls, popularly known as “akara”. Many more foods as well. 

In essence, we have to let go of all forms of cultural imperialism that are capable of demeaning our already exquisite culture, including and maybe especially, our foods.