I’m a girl born on the streets of Delta State, Nigeria, where street food like bole (grilled plantain) and fish flood the roadsides, and children run out after rainfall into little bushes to pick snails. Because of the region — and considering it has water bodies, just as the name implies, DELTA — our soups are richly filled with all kinds of dried fish, and not to mention periwinkle, which appears in many of our local delicacies.
I grew up surrounded by certain flavours, certain foods. Somewhere in my little mind, I thought food was capitalist — belonging to only one city or one nation. Until I discovered that a neighbouring state close to us had a similar soup to ours: Owho soup, but prepared differently. It even has the colour and consistency of Indian butter chicken, yet an entirely different taste.
Our chicken stew is so similar to Lebanese chicken and tomato stew. The Nigerian meat pie looks like a twin of the Mexican empanada.
All these made me question if food really belongs to only one region.
The British pride themselves on fish and chips, but my ancestors always roasted fish and ate it with yam.
So where exactly does food belong?
What passport does flavour have?
Is flavour Chinese or Vietnamese or British?
Over the years, the word “fusion” has swept through the culinary space, as though food creation has become one big bang theory where you fuse continents that were supposedly born apart. I personally don’t fancy that word because these flavours we claim belong to a place we’re trying to “fuse” have always travelled.
Corn is a widely used staple in Mexican cuisine.
But there’s corn in Africa.
Corn in the United Kingdom.
So who can truly lay claim to it?
One ingredient, many worlds.
Rice becomes sushi in Japan
Paella in Spain
Jollof in West Africa
Risotto in Italy
Same base. Different stories.
What we call “capitalist” is really shared venture. Food has always moved with trade, migration, and curiosity.
Friends, I’ve come to the conclusion that food is universal… and so is flavour.
It has no language. It has no passport.
It conveys the same feeling, the same warmth, the same spirit.
If we are to make the world a better place through food — pursuing sustainability and eliminating hunger — then we must come together under one umbrella, with food as a uniting force. Not fusion. Not capitalism. Not independence. But under the universality of FOOD.
Then, and only then, will our solutions become global.