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  • Interview With Cucumber: “It’s My Time to Shine”

    Zikoko arrives at a local market where foodstuffs are rumoured to be cheaper. In a corner, a commotion ensues between two traders: Pepper and Cucumber. Customers leave Pepper’s stall for Cucumber’s as the shouting match grows louder. Bystanders watch, with no one attempting to quell the fracas. Out of concern, Zikoko approaches the scene.

    Zikoko: Please, take it easy. What’s the problem?

    Pepper: Who is this one? What’s your business?

    Zikoko: My name is Zik—

    Pepper: Abeg, getat. You no go face wetin you come market for?

    Zikoko: Ah, sorry. I thought…

    Pepper: You thought what? Please, leave this place and mind your business.

    (Zikoko turns away, muttering “Na me fuck up” under their breath.)

    Cucumber: Hey! Ziko! Abi what did you call your name?

    (Zikoko turns back.)

    Zikoko: It’s Zikoko.

    Cucumber: Sha come. What do you want?

    (Zikoko approaches Cucumber’s stall.)

    Zikoko: I want pepper. I heard it’s cheaper in this market.

    (Cucumber shoots Zikoko a criminally offensive bombastic side eye before speaking.)

    Cucumber: Had it been I know you, I for give you a dirty slap.

    Zikoko: Ah. What did I do?

    Cucumber: So you think you’re better than all these people in front of my stall? Ehn?

    Zikoko: No now.

    Cucumber: What is no? Oya, go to Pepper now. Let’s see how you’ll use ten pieces of tomato and rodo to make one pot of soup.

    Zikoko: But I’m confused. It’s pepper I want and you’re selling cucumbers.

    (Cucumber turns away, attending to other customers like Zikoko isn’t there.)

    Random customer 1: Boda Zikoko, people are now using cucumber to supplement pepper. That’s why we’re here. It’s cheaper.

    Cucumber (cutting in): For now o. For now.

    Random customer 1 (continues): …and it tastes just as good.

    Zikoko: So you mean I can use cucumber to make soup?

    Random customer 1: Haven’t you been seeing the Instagram chef videos on social media?

    Cucumber: Help me ask him o.

    Zikoko: I thought cucumber was just for garnishing food and making healthy smoothies?

    Random customer 2: I even heard some ladies use it in za other room.

    (Cucumber leaps into the air, screaming.)

    Cucumber: Tufiakwa! Evil people. They’ve come again to spoil the good things happening in my life with rumours and “them say, them say”. Oya, you!

    (Cucumber points at random customer 2.)

    Cucumber: Vamooze from my sight. Vamooze if you don’t want me to comot your teeth just now.

    Zikoko: Please, calm down.

    Cucumber: People like that want to ridicule and reduce me to an object of pleasure. They make people ashamed of associating with me in public.

     [ad]

    Zikoko: So sorry about that.

    Cucumber: Abeg, keep your sorry. You’re not blame-free. 

    Zikoko: Me? How? What did I do?

    Cucumber: Reducing me to something used for culinary aesthetics and discarded after?

    Zikoko: But, isn’t it a good thing to help people stay healthy?

    Cucumber: It’s good, but boring. The world doesn’t want boring. Nobody remembers you if you’re boring. It’s like a snake leaving no prints on a mountain. I want to be remembered for being the life of the party; the one people want every day. The one people can’t do without. Not the one treated as an afterthought.

    Zikoko: I see. So, you’re getting that now?

    Cucumber: Oh yes. I’ve been given a second chance, which is long due, and I plan to ride this wave for a long time.

    Zikoko: But are you not getting ahead of yourself here? People still need pepper, even with you as a supplement.

    Cucumber: Oh please. That one? Didn’t you see the display earlier on? He who the gods want to destroy, they first run mad.

    Zikoko: I’m not sure I get your drift.

    Cucumber: Pepper has had it coming for a while. Going into scarcity on a whim and leaving people to spend 100x the amount. The other day, I heard jollof made an off-white outing. Imagine jollof and off-white in the same sentence? Jollof that used to be red with hotness. God, abeg.

    Now that people know there’s more to people like us, Pepper is getting jealous. E never see anything.

    Zikoko: Sounds like a war is brewing.

    (Cucumber’s phone rings.)

    Cucumber: Hello? Have you set up the meeting date? We need to sustain the momentum now that the world still has our attention. If Gbigbe refuses to join the coalition, we’ll go to Gigun. If Gigun refuses, we’ll find a way still.

    (Cucumber hangs up.)

    Zikoko: Who was that?

    Cucumber: You mentioned something about a war.

    Zikoko: Yes, I did.

    Cucumber: That was Carrot. We’re close to signing a deal with Atagbigbe and Atagigun.

    Zikoko: Pepper’s relati—

    Cucumber (cutting in): Tah! Relatives for where? People only remember them when Pepper chooses to go MIA. They’re seeking an escape and stand to benefit more from this deal.

    Zikoko: I see. So the enemy of your enemy is your friend?

    Cucumber: Precisely. If Rodo, Tomato, Tatashe and Shombo want to move like the world belongs to them, we’ll teach them a lesson.

    Zikoko: I heard you say your price is cheap just for now. That means you want to move like pepper too?

    Cucumber: Before? You think I came to this world to count ceilings? I won’t deny that I envy what Pepper has. I want that for myself.

    Zikoko: But the people have turned to you because you aim to ease their suffering and offer a cheaper alternative.

    Cucumber: For more than a month now, I’ve kept my prices between ₦200-500. But from next month? You’ll see the real me.

    Zikoko: So this is how you want to use your second chan—

    Cucumber (cutting in): Is that the time? Come and be going, please. I have an appointment with a Fitfam juice company.

    Zikoko: But I thought you—

    Cucumber: You thought what? That I’ll put all my eggs in one basket? Leemao.

    Read this next: Tomato Is Expensive Again, but These Simple Hacks Will Help

    Adeyinka Odutuyo

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  • These 7 Foods Taste Much Better With Pepper

    What’s better than pepper? Nothing! This is why you should add a little pepper to your dining. At the end of this article, you’d find yourself thanking us—you’re welcome. 

    Just add pepper

    Pancakes

    You mean people make pancakes without adding fresh pepper or even ata rodo to it? Are you a cultist?

    Plantain 

    Not liking plantain is a red flag — not just to me —but to members of the plantain secret cult. It specifically made this list because adding pepper is the only way I enjoy dodo. 

    RELATED: 5 Foods Made Out of Plantain That Nigerians Don’t Joke With

    Ice cream 

    This can’t be the first time you’ve thought about it. Imagine a sprinkle of pepper to your ice cream’s cold, sugary taste. You won’t look at vanilla the same way again.

    Toast 

    It beats me how you can decide to eat something so bland in the first place—toast bread, French toast, whatever name you and your family members know it by. But add ground pepper and watch it move from a five to a solid eight. 

    RELATED: What’s the Best Thing to Eat Bread With? We Ranked Them All

    Wine 

    You better believe that pepper is one ingredient that separates Rosé from your Fourth Street or Four Cousins. 

    Tip: One pinch should do the trick.

    Rice

    Rice has Nigerians in a chokehold, so why won’t you be open to trying new recipes? Add pepper to give it an extra zing.

    Yes, we mean your white rice. 

    Chocolates

    Listen, too much sugar equals diabetes and nobody wants that. Why don’t you counterattack it with a little pepper here and there then? 

    ALSO READ: Are You Even Nigerian if You Don’t Like These Very Nigerian Things? 

    Meyimi O.

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  • QUIZ: What Type of Pepper Are You?

    Nigeria is blessed with different kinds of pepper — from atarodo to tatashe.

    Take this quiz and we’ll tell you the type pepper you are:

    Prisca

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  • Interview With Pepper: “Beg Yoruba People To Free Me”

    Interview With… is a Zikoko weekly series that explores the weird and interesting lives of inanimate objects and non-human entities.

    How does it feel to be claimed by an ethnic group when you were created to belong to nobody and everybody? In this week’s Interview With, Pepper sits with us to discuss its experience in the hands of Yoruba people.

    Zikoko: It’s nice to have you here.

    Pepper: I’m not sure I can say the same.

    Uhm, why?

    Listen, if I had my way, I would not even do this interview at all, but my agent thinks it’s important. That’s why I said let me take a short break from all my hard labour and come here.

    Even now, as I’m sitting here, I can hear the anguished cry of some Yoruba people who think I have disappeared from the surface of the earth.

    This is a lot to unpack.

    What I have experienced in the hands of Yoruba people is a lot to unpack. That’s why I am not even bothering to unpack it again.

    Okay now you have mentioned a name. We are making progress. Can you tell me what your relationship is like with Yoruba people?

    We are unequally yoked, me and Yoruba people. It is a parasitic relationship.

    Who is the parasite and who is the host?

    I am the host, and Yorubas are the parasite. Quote me anywhere, I will stand by my words and tell anybody that I said it.

    When I was created, I was made without an ethnic group in my mind. God said, “Pepper, I have made you to add flavour to the lives of the people I am about to create.”

    I was made to belong to nobody and everybody.

    What changed?

    The Yorubas tasted me and started plotting how to make me their birthright. And given how people now associate me with them, you can see that they have succeeded.

    Other ethnic groups use me with caution, almost as if they are scared of Yoruba people catching them in the act. They use me in stew, and it’s like I’m not even there at all. Only tomatoes choking me and erasing my presence. Hausas just need to make small powder out of me for suya, and they are satisfied.

    But you see Yorubas? [shakes head in regret] They don’t use me to cook food. They use food to cook me.

    I’m not sure I understand.

    Let me ask you a question. When you want to cook noodles, what should be more?

    The noodles.

    Good. Let a Yoruba person cook me. N100 pepper for N50 noodles. I sometimes wonder, if you want to eat pepper, just say so. Don’t use noodles to disguise.

    Can you point out a particular reason for this—

    Obsession? Addiction?

    Whatever you want to call it.

    Frankly, I don’t know. But I think their cultural myths have a role to play in this. It is in Yorubaland I heard that anyone who does not eat pepper is a weak soul.

    Ehn?

    Yes oh. Apparently, they believe that they are prone to a number of ailments and maybe death if they don’t eat me. It is why most Yoruba people cannot survive in foreign countries.

    They say Abuja people are addicted to cocaine. But you see Yoruba people? Pepper is like cocaine for them. Deprive them of it for three months and see how they will become something else.

    https://twitter.com/Reree_N/status/1368303055570092040

    Wow.

    It used to bother me. A lot. But at one point I’ve just decided to surrender. I looked upon Yoruba people and thought, “Nah. These ones are beyond redemption.”

    Can you point out the moment you made that decision?

    Frankly, I think every moment in my life has been leading up to that final moment. Because each time I think Yoruba people can’t go any lower, they dig even deeper.

    The first shocker for me when they called me and said, ‘Oya stand well. As from next month, we will be putting you inside a biscuit for small children.’ This was late in the 90s going to early 2000s.

    What biscuit was that?

    Pepper Snack.

    I was surprised. How did the board of investors allow a Yoruba man to pitch the idea of putting me, fresh pepper, inside biscuits for young children. How?

    Wow.

    I thought Pepper Snack would be the end of my inclusion into branded products. Apparently, I was wrong. Almost two decades later, another Yoruba man showed his hand on the board of Minimie chin chin.

    How did you feel about it?

    How else was I supposed to feel? They have been putting me in chin chin unofficially. Even in puff puff and pancakes and akara. I just underestimated their ability to take it to a professional scale.

    One day, a Yoruba person will blow on a global level, and it will be for an invention related to pepper. Mark my words.

    Why do you say that?

    As we speak right now, a Yoruba person is planning how to include me in cake.

    Ehn?

    I raise you this man.

    https://twitter.com/TheHabibLateef/status/1363260899063169025

    Omo.

    Wait, he’s not done.

    https://twitter.com/TheHabibLateef/status/1364481805496295424

    Can I say the truth?

    Go on.

    I don’t mind the idea. Imagine red velvet cake with slices of red pepper peeking out. The taste.

    Wait a minute. What’s your name?

    Um, why are you asking?

    Answer me first. It’s important.

    Kunle. My name is Kunle.

    Oh, I should have known.

    That what?

    You are an opp. And I was here, pouring my heart out to you.

    No, wait oh.

    Please. Let me go before you eat me.

    [Pepper walks off in disgust].

    Check back every Friday by 9AM for new Interview With episodes. To read previous stories, click here.

    Kunle Ologunro

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  • 9 Ingredients You Need To Make Yoruba Stew
    For this to work, you have to pretend that you’re watching a cooking show with me as the host.

    Hi. 👋

    Welcome to the first episode of the weekly series named Grandpabbychuck’s Recipes. In this first (and probably last) episode, I’ll be teaching you about the ingredients you need to make Yoruba tomato stew, even though I’m equal parts Igbo, Benin, and 1/16 Hausa. (Don’t think too much about it.)

    Let’s get a-cooking.

    1) Pepper

    A constant.

    2) Tomato

    Because your stew absolutely has to have tomatoes in it. To do otherwise would be insane, right?

    RIGHT?!

    3) Onions

    For flavour. If you don’t cook with onions, your food is trash. And that’s that on that.

    4) Pepper

    5) Any dead animal of your choice.

    Chicken, turkey, rabbit, horse, etc.

    6) Pepper

    7) Curry & Thyme

    I’ve come to the conclusion that no one knows what these things do in food but we use them anyway because they make us feel fancy.

    8) PEPPER

    9) EVEN MORE:

    Astor George

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