The ‘odó ati ọmọ odó’ in my kitchen by Elizabeth Obadina

credit Elizabeth Obadina

 When I lived in Lagos the odó fitted snugly into the corner of the steps connecting the kitchen and the dining room. It was always stored upside down and sitting on it was forbidden. Being round and about 40 cm in both height and diameter a nifty corner gap was left behind the odó where the ọmọ odó was propped up without it falling over and tripping everyone up. 

Unlike most of my kitchen utensils the odó ati ọmọ odó boasted ancient relatives scattered throughout history and throughout today’s world, indeed one found in Borneo was carbon-dated to the Stone Age, 35,000 years ago. They are built to last and often given to brides on their wedding day. I bought mine in the local market.

The wooden odó (bowl) ati (and) wooden ọmọ odó (child of the bowl) are what the English call a mortar and pestle, and although called odó ati ọmọ odó amongst nearly fifty million Yoruba speakers, about 45 million of whom live in south-west Nigeria, wooden mortars and pestles are ubiquitous across Africa and are known by many different names in many different languages. 

If there was a sound uniting communities across the African continent it might just be the rhythmic thumping of pestles in mortars as the evening meal is being prepared. 

It is said that Sàngó, the powerful Yoruba God of Thunder and Lightning sits upon a mortar and should a woman be so foolish as to go outside when it’s raining to pound yam, she risks being struck by Sàngó’s lightening for daring to be as noisy as his thunder!

The odó ati ọmọ odó is made from tropical hardwoods and many in southern Nigerian city markets have been brought down from the savannah belt where wood from the shea nut and mighty iroko trees are to be found. The iroko tree grows to fifty metres, can live for five hundred years and is exceptionally durable, resistant to rot and insect attack and its wood is particularly suited to odó ati ọmọ odó manufacture. However, the iroko tree’s longevity has given rise to stories of spirits taking up residence within the wood and branches; of misfortune falling upon any wood-cutter so foolish as to fell such entities of ancestral worship; and of spirits living within items made from iroko wood who, being freed at nighttime go haunting their new homes. I don’t think my odó ati ọmọ odó were made from iroko, they probably came from managed plantations of mahogany or teak and I don’t recall any ghosts roaming our house after dark.

Traditional African cuisine is labour intensive – not for nothing is pounding yam called ‘exercise for women’. It’s hard work and the pounding only produces the okele part of the meal. Okele is what the Yoruba call ‘swallow food’ - the starchy main component of a meal which can be fashioned by hand to scoop up stews. The most common Yoruba okele-staples are eba, made from fermented and powdered cassava roots and iyan, boiled yam pounded in mortars with mighty pestle-clubs which make a large mound to be shared for supper.

I’m ashamed to confess that yam pounding was not a skill I mastered. My odó ati ọmọ odó was expertly used by our maids who would sometimes let our children ‘have a go’ – they proved as equally useless as me, lacking the patience and strength to produce fine pounded yam. My husband bought one of the first pounded yam machines to save everyone’s labour but it didn’t survive the frequent power cuts which characterise life in Lagos. Also the resulting pounded yam was held to be mightily inferior to that produced by traditional mortar and pestle. I love pounded yam and would love to eat it here, but finding yam requires a city visit and buying a machine in the UK now cost around £300 on Amazon.

 I lost my odó ati ọmọ odó when we moved and according to friends still in Lagos a new one now costs almost as much as the ‘Made in China’ electronic one. The craftsmen who made them are a dying breed, dangerous travelling means they no longer want to travel to the towns and cities to sell their wares, climate change and deforestation are destroying the hardwood trees and modern working women no longer have the time to shell, grind, sieve and pound the ingredients for traditional homemade food. Pounded yam substitutes are whipped up with processed yam flour and semolina in boiling water over a hot stove. 

Nice – but not the same thing at all.