I am learning to acclimatize to the flavors of a new life in Canada

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The weeks leading up to my departure from Nigeria were a mix of emotions, with excitement, uncertainty and anxiety at the top of the list. I didn’t yet have a clear idea of ​​what my wife and I were getting into, but the outlook was positive. We had just gotten married and were moving for the better quality of life that Canada promised us.

Everyone said to pack as many food ingredients as possible, so with the help of family members, we We started shopping: dried fish, gari flour, ground melon seeds, dried leaves and more—things we wouldn’t find in Calgary, where we were headed, or that might be too expensive to find a version that would appease our Nigerian taste buds. We were preparing “a kind of mobile pantry,” as Kosisochukwu Ugwuede writes in his essay Traveling food pantryspeaking about the propensity of Nigerian travelers to transport their foodstuffs abroad.

It was a hectic time and we packed our lives into four large suitcases, plus an equal number of carry-ons. Two of these large boxes were filled with groceries. We were ready for a new life in the land of maple leaves. I imagined that the things that had dominated our lives growing up in Nigeria were, if they existed at all, just a tiny speck in the cultural landscape in this new country.

To be honest, most of my concerns about culture were about food. I wondered if I could live without my swallows – not birds, but a dumpling-like dish with many names, including eba Or continue depending on what it is made of and how. I couldn’t remember if two weeks in my almost 30 years of life had gone by without eating it. They are eaten with soups or stews by tearing them into pieces with the right hand, dipping them in the soup and swallowing. It’s comfort in the belly and, as I often find, it fills the soul. I wondered how to continue eating them when our Nigerian pantry was inevitably depleted.

But in Calgary, we have discovered many African food stores throughout the city where I can easily find powdered milk or even my favorite bitters from Nigeria. And there are African restaurants where I can find conclusion (spicy cow’s feet) and shawarma with a sausage placed neatly inside in the Nigerian style, reminiscent of a pig in a blanket.

Before moving to Canada, I had little reason to try foreign foods and I continue to fascinate my Canadian colleagues by claiming to have never tried things like pickles, which they probably take for granted as universal. Privately, I enjoy their anticipation as they wait for my verdict while I chew this or that for the first time. I can’t offer them much more than “it’s good” or “it’s great” because we generally don’t share the same vocabulary when it comes to food. I can’t instinctively imagine what they mean when they say “herb-infused,” nor did I know what “umami” meant until recently. And if I said a meal was “rich,” we wouldn’t think the same thing.

One of the biggest problems, however, is how to eat in public: it’s a constant source of apprehension. Should I use a fork, my hands, or a spoon? Canadians are too polite to tell you when you’re eating something wrong or weird. So while the other people at the table are probably busy tending to their food, I shudder inwardly to wonder how many of them judge me for using a fork on food that requires hand treatment. It shouldn’t matter much, I tell myself, but it often does.

I am adapting and trying new foods. I will reserve my comments on poutine until I have tried it a few more times. Steaks are delicious when cooked properly. The many Asian flavours I find in Calgary have been a revelation. I have also tried tacos for the fourth time and can finally eat them in public without anxiety cluttering my brain while I figure out how to gracefully fold and bite them.

Most of the menus are still unfamiliar to me, but I’m doing a little better. I certainly won’t order linguine with mussels again, the first and last time I did it was because of the familiarity of the pasta, but the tedious shelling of the mussels and their salty taste sealed their fate for me. But I would still eat hummus, it reminds me of my mother’s fluffy bean pudding, me me. The bread and butter pickles were good but I didn’t enjoy the French onion soup. The wasabi was hot, but the heat didn’t seem right and my aversion to raw foods will probably always keep me from enjoying sushi.

Sometimes I think of food as an indicator of how I’m settling into this new life and country. I’m grateful that I can still fill my belly with the tastes of my childhood while acclimating to the flavors of a new life. This journey has been fraught with anxiety, but it’s also been a rewarding and flavorful experience. experience – and it’s still early.

Wole Olayinka lives in Calgary.