Cultural Revival and Documentation of Nigerian Abandoned and Contemporary Food Derivations from Cassava

Abstract

The language and the cultural heritage of a group which includes the peoples' cuisine are the keys to their existence and identity. Centuries ago, Nigeria's populace was sufficiently fed by Nigeria's traditionally processed foods which cassava derivatives formed the majority. With foreign food infiltration into the Nigeria culture, Nigerian's preference for foreign foods increased. Contemporarily, many Nigerian foods including cassava derivatives are socio-culturally abandoned and their processing methods moribund. As a result, there is food scarcity in Nigeria and the prices of food in Nigeria sky-rocket daily leaving the poor masses hungry, sick or afflicted with diseases. This paper emerged to study the processes of some abandoned and contemporary cassava derivatives which if revitalized, rebranded and domesticated, will curb the food scarcity threat and boost the Nigerian economy. The study serves as an archive to Nigeria's traditional cassava food processing methods for further studies towards repackaging to suit the contemporary society to save them from extinction and boost the nation's food supply. This research, adopted the use of, oral interviews, questionnaires, personal observation methods, phone calls and note taking to decipher information from five hundred Nigerians selected through a random sampling from five states in Nigeria. The samples were interviewed in some Nigerian markets in Akure, Lagos, Enugu, Abuja, and Port-Harcourt respectively. The result of the data showed that 98% of Nigerians have negative attitudes towards eating cassava derivatives, they patronize foreign foods and culinary in their homes and social functions thereby, making Nigerian foods stand the risk of gradual extinction and replacement with foreign foods and culinary, if urgent measures are not taken. The paper calls for a revitalization, rebranding, domestication, repackaging and documentation of Nigerian foods processes to save them from going into oblivion. It also calls for further researches for improving traditional food processing methods for acceptability to the younger generations for a sustainable development and reduction of hunger, poverty, diseases and death in Nigeria. Their acceptability too requires massive awareness and sensitization campaign on them by stakeholders and the media.