Listen carefully and today I will tell you the rest of the story of Granny and Grandad’s first Christmas Dinner in Nigeria.
One Christmas Eve, a very long time ago, before Big Sister was born, Granny and Grandad prepared a special Christmas Dinner for their friends who were invited over on Christmas Day. It was as close to an English Christmas Dinner as it could be - excepting that the turkey was missing. Great Grandma, Grandad’s mummy, had promised Granny and Grandad that the turkey which had visited their flat on Christmas Eve would be delivered on Christmas Morning, all ready to cook, in time for Christmas Dinner.
We were woken very, very early on Christmas Day by the dawn call to prayer from the mosque over the road. We were a bit tired and grumpy as the church next door had been loudly celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ since midnight and we woke up tired, with the cries of, ‘Praise the Lord!’ and ‘Hallelujah!’; super intense drumming; triangle playing and lastly a bugle clarion call welcoming in Christmas Day still hammering through our heads. The congregation had only gone home a couple of hours earlier. They would be back later in the day. Meanwhile we got up, made some coffee and sat outside on the balcony to watch the sun rise.
It was a beautiful day. Chilly because of Harmattan but the haze, although quite thick, was somehow lying below us like a fog over nearby swampland. It was white, like snow, and, seeming to emerge from it, the sun was rising through an apricot sky.
There was very little noise, just the occasional cock crow for even though Lagos was, and still is, a gigantic city many people kept chicken and goats in their yards and very few people then used supermarkets for their meat. It was so cold that we needed wrappers around our shoulders like blankets. We unwrapped all the presents that Father Christmas had managed to deliver to Lagos and after a while went indoors to dust away the fine Sahara sand the Harmattan wind had spread everywhere.
We were expecting visitors so we laid the dining table in
the British Christmas style complete with crackers, fake holly and candles –
although those weren’t for decoration, we didn't trust the electricity to stay
on. The invitation had gone out to join us for a meal at 2pm and by 9am Granny
was getting worried because there still wasn’t a turkey and roasting a turkey
takes at least four hours and the ostrich-sized bird Grandma had brought on
Christmas Eve looked big enough to need a whole day to cook in.
“Don’t worry,” said Grandad, “Mum will send it in time.” And she did.
Just after 9am the compound gate clanged open and Grandma’s car arrived and Muyiwa, having dropped Grandma and her household at church, had one last task to do before he could rest for a few hours. Being Muslim, no one expected him to join everyone else in church. His last Christmas morning task was to deliver our turkey.
We watched him take a big silver bowl out of the car boot. The bowl contained a turkey shaped mound under a green and white checked tea towel. “See,” said Grandad to Granny, “I told you not to worry,” and Grandad fetched the bowl from Muyiwa and brought it into the kitchen.
“For your soup,” said Muyiwa, which Granny thought was a little odd. “Merry Christmas!! O dabọ! Goodbye!” he said and left.
“It’s heavy,” said Grandad as he put down the bowl and Granny began to worry whether there was enough time to roast the bird.
“Let’s get it stuffed quickly and in the oven,” said Granny and Grandad took the green and white checked cloth from the bowl.
The turkey lay there, ready for cooking … chopped up into a million little pieces!!!
“Oh no!” groaned Granny, understanding now why Muyiwa had said, “For your soup.” For Nigerians would be preparing soups (stews), fried meats, fried plantain, jollof rice and salads for their Christmas meals, not stuffed roast fowl, roast root vegetables, boiled greens, bread sauce, gravy and the like.
“Oh no,” Granny groaned again and fetched the waiting stuffing and began to reassemble the turkey pieces around the stuffing mound. It wasn’t quite anatomically correct by the time she stood back to admire her handiwork, but by the time it had been held together with bacon rashers it would do and it was getting late.
Amazingly, but probably because the turkey had been chopped into pieces, everything was roasted and ready for 2pm. Granny and Grandad were hungry by now and a little dizzy from the drinks they had enjoyed whilst waiting for their guests to arrive. Two o’clock came and went. Three o’clock passed. At quarter to four Granny and Grandad could wait no longer. The smell of the roast meal now mingled with the smell of neighbours cooking their meals and Granny and Grandad were starving.
Granny and Grandad ate alone. Granny wondered aloud whether Grandad had delivered the invitation properly and got the time right and around the deep silence in the flat, joyful singing and drumming rose up once again from the church whose congregation had resumed their Christmas celebrations. Granny and Grandad finished their meal which was a little overcooked by this time. They didn’t really feel like pulling crackers. It seemed a bit sad and a bit silly. Granny mashed up all the vegetable left-overs and everything was packed away in the fridge.
“I hope NEPA stays,” said Granny, “or else all that food will be wasted.” But the electricity didn’t stay and soon the candles were lit and Granny and Grandad went back on to the balcony to watch and listen to the neighbourhood festivities. And then, just as it was getting really dark, Granny and Grandad’s Christmas Dinner guests turned up.
“Merry Christmas!!” Greetings rang up the stairwell and through the flat. “Merry Christmas! Seasons Greetings! Merry Christmas!”
Granny and Grandad hurried to bring out drinks; bottles of Star and Gulder beers, Guinness and for those wanting something non-alcoholic; Maltina, Coke, Fanta and Sprite. The brandy Granny had intended for setting the Christmas Pudding alight was drunk. Roasted groundnuts and fried chin-chin snacks were handed around and it soon became apparent that there had been some cultural misunderstanding.
Grandad got the blame, of course, for not making it clear that the invitation was for a sit-down-at-the-table meal at 2pm not ‘open-house’ from 2pm - as was the usual thing. Granny was secretly delighted that her guests were already stuffed full of goat, chicken and jollof rice from the other places her guests had dropped by en route to their flat. She was too embarrassed now to offer the greasy, limp left-overs from Granny and Grandad’s meal as a typical British Christmas Dinner.
Christmas cake and mince pies were shared and then, just as Granny thought her Christmas kitchen crisis was over for another year one friend piped up, “Well Liz, what’s this special Christmas turkey meal, Tunde’s been talking about?" For it was evening and these young men hadn’t eaten since late afternoon and they were hungry again. “Yes, I’ve never eaten turkey,” said another.
So there was no way out. On that Christmas Day over forty years ago Granny and Grandad fed their Christmas guests cold turkey and bubble and squeak.*
Although no one had been quite sure that that was the
typical British Christmas food they had been led to expect, the bubble and
squeak went down well and everyone celebrated late into Christmas night – long
after the church and the mosque had fallen silent and the neighbourhood was
sleeping.
* Bubble and Squeak – a British term for mashed up and fried left over vegetables.
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