Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart with her new cookbook New York Times food columnist Yewande Komolafe presents the many dishes, flavors, and treats you can find in Nigeria. Komolafe was born in Berlin but raised in Lagos until she came to the US and ultimately enrolled in culinary school. As she reveals in the book, that because of a school-related visa mix-up, she lived and worked while undocumented for years.

It wasn't until 2017 when she was granted a green card that she was able to return to Lagos after many years away, and visit her parents in their Ikeja neighborhood home, and immerse herself back into the energy of Lagos, and of course, enjoy the food. Like frequenting street food spots known as Bukas and await the typical "food is ready" shout in Nigerian homes. Komolafe writes in her book, "There is a brilliant and defiant order to Lagos, and it starts with its people. It stems from their relationships with each other. From that simple context outward, Lagos is a place where anything is possible."

Not only are the recipes great, but it's also one of the best-looking cookbooks you're going to find. It's called My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora. It's out now. Yewande Komolafe joins me in studio. Welcome back to the show.

Yewande Komolafe: Thank you for having me. It's so good to be here.

Alison Stewart: You reveal a lot about your own story right up front in the book and your relationship to Nigeria, working hard shifts in kitchens, being concerned about being undocumented. What was helpful for you and revisiting that time in your life when writing this book, and what was tough about revisiting those times?

Yewande Komolafe: It felt like I had to re-live those experiences to write about it. At the point that I was going through them, I sort of experienced them and just put them away, and just went on with my life to survive. It was tough to have to pick through with a fine tooth comb what happened, all the experiences, who am I, all the questions about my identity. That was tough, but also, it felt like a release. I think I've talked about all of these different things in different spaces and different places. To have it in one place, and just be like, "This is my story." It felt like a release, and it felt really liberating.

Alison Stewart: What do you remember from that moment when you were able to return home, when got off the plane, and you really realized, "I'm back home for the first time in a really long time."

Yewande Komolafe: Yes. I don't think I called it home at that point. I remember getting off the plane and the heat just like hit me. The airport workers were standing in the airway, and everyone was like, "Welcome to Lagos, welcome to Lagos." I was like, "Oh, my God, they're talking to me. They're welcoming me back home." That was really great. I just remember my senses just being on fire. I was so stimulated just visually. Everything that I tasted, everything that I smelled, it just all felt so powerful. That was one of my most intense memories of being back in Lagos was that my senses were just alert.

Alison Stewart: There are certain places as soon as you say their name, people get an idea. You say Amsterdam, and you are like, "I can picture canals. Yes, I get that." Or I'm going to say Marseille it's like, "Oh, the water or it's really beautiful." How would you describe Lagos for somebody? What is the, for lack of a better word, the vibe? What is the energy?

Yewande Komolafe: No, of course. I was going to use the word energy. Lagos just has an energy about it. It's vibrant. I tried to do that with the book, the colors, the textures, the noise. It just stimulates your senses in a way that nowhere else that I'd been in. I feel like Lagos just has a vibrant energy. It's always on even if it's like one o'clock at night. I love that about Lagos.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Tell me about it because the book, as I said, it's really beautiful. It's really colorful. It's got these amazing illustrations. I'm not sure what that font is, but I like it.

Yewande Komolafe: Oh my god, it's called the Yewande font. I know. My friend George McCalman designed the book. He was the art director on the project and he created a font for me that looks like my handwriting.

Alison Stewart: That's amazing.

Yewande Komolafe: And called it Yewande, which is incredible.

Alison Stewart: Who has their own font?

Yewande Komolafe: I know.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] That's amazing. The color palette, tell me a little bit about the choice of the color palette for the book.

Yewande Komolafe: I went with an illustrator who is Nigerian, Diana Ejaita. She is based in Berlin but was in Nigeria at the time that she was working on this book. We talked about just trying to insert the energy of Lagos into the cookbook. We talked several times and she was like, "I got it." I went with her illustrations because I already got that sense. She does a bunch of stuff at The New York Times for The New Yorker. I got that sense that she would understand it, and she did that. She illustrated the book, she illustrated the cover. She just brought that vibrant energy of Lagos that I was looking for.

Alison Stewart: I also like the cover color is like the color of Yems.

Yewande Komolafe: It is, yes. Absolutely. I actually didn't realize that because we call Yems something different in Nigeria. We have these white tubers that actually look like cassava or manioc, and they're brown on the outside but white, but this does look like. It looks like fall actually.

Alison Stewart: It does look like fall. The name of the cookbook is My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora. My guest is Yewande Komolafe. It is her cookbook. When you think about the flavor profile of Nigerian cooking, what are the flavors that we get? Again, if you think about Parisian cooking or French cooking, it's like you know that there's going to be cream sauce and butter. If it's Mexican cooking, there's going to be chili, tortillas. What is it about Nigerian cooking? Is there a flavor profile?

Yewande Komolafe: I would say there absolutely is. There's a recipe in the book I called the Trinity Pepper Paste. It embodies the intensity and the flavor profile of Nigerian cooking. It's got scotch bonnet chilies, it's got crayfish, it's got some salt, and it's also got some Iru, which is fermented locust bean. Those three flavors are fundamental along with red palm oil, which is a floral. It coats, it colors. The intensity of those flavors are just suffused throughout our cooking in Nigeria.

Alison Stewart: A lot of the seafood is dried or smoked.

Yewande Komolafe: Not a lot. There's smoked seafood, there's dried seafood, but there's also fresh seafood. Lagos is on the coast so it's a seafood town.

Alison Stewart: When the seafood is dried, how do you use it as opposed to when it's fresh?

Yewande Komolafe: Yes. When it's dried, it's rehydrated and added into soups and stews. If you've ever had dried shrimp in cooking before, it's that sort of intensity. Drying it just intensifies the flavor, so does smoking it, but it does something different smoking the seafood. Yes, a lot of dried seafood, which is the dried crayfish, the dried stock fish. A lot of smoked seafood as well.

Alison Stewart: The recipes aren't only from Lagos, correct?

Yewande Komolafe: No. The recipes are from all over Nigeria, which is why I picked Lagos because Lagos is special in that way, where it's got communities of everyone across Nigeria. You can find food from all over the country in Lagos specifically because people move there for trade, for markets. It's always been a seat of commerce. It's a huge city. Lagos is special in that way, where it's got food from all over the country.

Alison Stewart: What are the culture of the Buka? What is that like?

Yewande Komolafe: Buka culture. Oh my God. That's like lunchtime culture. I would say Buka culture is like, you sit down, you eat, you hang out for a bit, then you go back to work. It's a constant turnover. It's where you can get your old standbys. I know that if I wanted rice and chicken stew, I can go to a Buka and get it. It's got that vibe of a quick lunchtime culture.

Alison Stewart: You write in the book that in Nigeria breakfast, lunch, and dinner isn't exactly the same structure as here in the States, but you still have a meal to start the day section. What is a classic meal to start the day?

Yewande Komolafe: I would say a classic meal is fermented corn, which is made into a porridge. It's called Ogi. It's something that I've made with my daughter several times and something that I really got into because I love fermentation, but it's fermented cornstarch that's made into a porridge that's like nice and warm, and then you eat it with Àkàrà which is a bean fritter. On the weekend, you can eat it with Moin-moin which is also beans but it's steamed. You typically savory foods. You could also have stew eggs, which I also love, which is eggs cooked with Ata dindin, which is like a scotch bonnet sauce essentially.

Alison Stewart: You made that with your dad. Your dad makes an appearance in the book.

Yewande Komolafe: He does, yes.

Alison Stewart: How do I pronounce this?

Yewande Komolafe: Alakpa.

Alison Stewart: Dad Alakpa with fresh catfish and dumplings. What's the origin of your dad's specialty?

Yewande Komolafe: Yes. My dad rarely cooked but when he did, it was always a seafood stew. I remember this was a marker for the weekend, this dish. He had a job on the island and he'll come back through traffic and buy fresh catfish and cook it immediately. He now breeds catfish in his compound, but before, he would buy it fresh every Friday and would come home and make this really brothy seafood stew with catfish and put in some starch dumplings in it. That's his thing that he made growing up. It was really special.

Alison Stewart: Is this his own recipe?

Yewande Komolafe: I actually don't know. I don't know. It's something that he enjoyed. The basis of the recipe are all things that are common to Nigerian cooking, but it was just something that he really enjoyed making. I think he put those ingredients together in his own way, but I don't know if it's his own specific recipe.

Alison Stewart: You mentioned with the meals to start the day, and you said it quickly, but I want people to understand what Ata dindin, it's the money sauce.

Yewande Komolafe: The money sauce.

Alison Stewart: That's what you call it. Why is it the money sauce?

Yewande Komolafe: Oh, man. It's not something that you rush at all. It's a relish of red bell peppers, onions, I like ginger and garlic in mine and scotch bonnets. It's something that you reduce slowly. You can't rush it because it will burn, but it's something that goes on everything. It goes on eggs in the morning. It's a dipping sauce for Àkàrà. It's a sauce to eat with rice. It just goes on everything. It's just always there. It's like a condiment that's always there.

It's what I have in my fridge and a jar right now, just sitting there because I know that I can go there and take a spoonful of it and put it on my eggs in the morning, but yes, that's the money sauce.

Alison Stewart: Now if someone wants to try some of the recipes or try the money sauce, where would you suggest they go shopping in the area?

Yewande Komolafe: All of these ingredients are available. It's red bell peppers, onions, ginger. It's all things that you can find at the market. I would say for specific ingredients like Iru, crayfish, the dried stock fish online has been a great resource recently. Also, they're African markets in every community. I actually took a trip across the US looking for African markets and I found one in New Mexico. Every community seems to have an African market. They usually go by the name like African or Caribbean markets. Those are all also a good resource to find these ingredients, but I would start online.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Yewande Komolafe. The name of the book is My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora. What's the role of meat in Nigerian cooking?

Yewande Komolafe: Meat is for flavor. Meat is an ingredient that adds bulk to dishes. I found that thinking about Nigerian cuisine and versus how I've learned to eat here, meat takes almost a backseat. When we say meat, it includes awful, it includes the pork skid, or the stomach lining called tripe. It takes a backseat and it's mostly for flavor, but it also is presented with dishes as part of the meal, but it's never the main ingredient. I would say the starch and the stew are typically the main ingredient, and then the meat is just little bits in it.

Alison Stewart: What is a recipe or dish that is important for some sort of ceremony, whether it be a birthday, a funeral, or a family gathering? What's the dish you'll find?

Yewande Komolafe: I would say absolutely Àkàrà. Those are fried bean fritters, and that is something that I remember was always just present for a birth naming, a birthday, or any ceremony, just like you named. Black-eyed peas or honey beans specifically are ground into a paste, and then that paste is flavored with some aromatics and then fried in little like clumps, and it comes out just-- It depends on how you like it, but you can have it really crispy on the outside or you can have it soften on the outside, but it's basically just a fried bean fritter. It's really delicious.

Alison Stewart: If someone wanted to try Nigerian cooking to know how it's supposed to taste before they try it to make it, where could they go in the city? Do you have any recommendations?

Yewande Komolafe: I do have a recommendation and this is really funny. I recently was at this restaurant called Lagos in Times Square, and it is where you can get just basic Nigerian food and try it out. It's got a really interesting vibe. It's in Times Square, so it's like pretty-- It's Times Square-y, but I had a delicious meal there and I would absolutely recommend it to people who want to try Nigerian food.

Alison Stewart: You try it and then you get the cookbook and try to make it at all.

Yewande Komolafe: Exactly. You get the cookbook first, so you know what you're eating.

Alison Stewart: That's smart.

Yewande Komolafe: So you know what to order.

Alison Stewart: That is smart. The name of the cookbook is My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora. It is out now. My guest has been Yewande Komolafe, thank you for coming to the studio.

Yewande Komolafe: Thank you for having me. This has been so lovely.

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It.

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