Delicious, nutritious, precious: Nigeria’s ‘Slow Food’ travel & tourism potential

Slow Food has found sup­port in Niger­ia. With its poten­tial to con­trib­ute to a cul­ture of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, as well as to vis­it­ors’ exper­i­ences, might Slow Food be a wel­come addi­tion to tour itin­er­ar­ies there? 

Adenike Ade­bayo thinks so. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. 

[Thanks to Jim Butcher for invit­ing Dr Ade­bayo to write a “GT” Insight.]

Gast­ro­nomy and good food exper­i­ences can enhance the attract­ive­ness of any des­tin­a­tion. In recent years, there has been a strong recog­ni­tion of the oppor­tun­it­ies that loc­al food presents to tour­ism destinations.

Much of the time, when tour­ists think about trav­el­ling to Niger­ia, or any oth­er coun­try in Africa, it is to exper­i­ence wild­life on safari. How­ever, one of the best ways to exper­i­ence cul­ture in Niger­ia, or any­where else, is through food.

Nigeri­an cook­ing is renowned and dis­tinct­ive, and poten­tially a real tour­ism asset.

The Slow Food move­ment is gain­ing pop­ular­ity in Niger­ia with 34 com­munit­ies and con­vivia (loc­al chapters) acknow­ledged by the inter­na­tion­al organ­isa­tion. Slow Food con­vivia typ­ic­ally com­prise any­one with a pas­sion for food pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion, includ­ing fish­ers, farm­ers, act­iv­ists, aca­dem­ics, and producers. 

The inter­na­tion­al Slow Food move­ment was foun­ded in 1989 to coun­ter­act the dis­ap­pear­ance of loc­al food brought about by our mod­ern, con­veni­ence-ori­ented soci­ety. The fore­run­ner to Slow Food arose in Rome, Italy three years earli­er to res­ist the open­ing of a golden arches near the Span­ish Steps.

Slow Food is an inter­na­tion­ally recog­nised label aimed at those who have an interest in gast­ro­nomy. The three ten­ets of Slow Food’s philo­sophy can be boiled down to the words ‘good’, ‘clean’, and ‘fair’ accord­ing to its Mani­festo for Qual­ity, as follows:

1) Good. A food’s fla­vor and aroma, recog­niz­able to edu­cated, well-trained senses, is the fruit of the com­pet­ence of the pro­du­cer and of choice of raw mater­i­als and pro­duc­tion meth­ods, which should in no way alter its naturalness.

2) Clean. The envir­on­ment has to be respec­ted and sus­tain­able prac­tices of farm­ing, anim­al hus­bandry, pro­cessing, mar­ket­ing and con­sump­tion should be taken into ser­i­ous con­sid­er­a­tion. Every stage in the agro-indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion chain, con­sump­tion included, should pro­tect eco­sys­tems and biod­iversity, [and safe­guard] the health of the con­sumer and the producer.

3) Fair. Social justice should be pur­sued through the cre­ation of con­di­tions of labor respect­ful of man and his rights and cap­able of gen­er­at­ing adequate rewards; through the pur­suit of bal­anced glob­al eco­nom­ies; through the prac­tice of sym­pathy and solid­ar­ity; through respect for cul­tur­al diversit­ies and traditions.

Excerpt from Good, Clean and Fair: the Slow Food Mani­festo for Qual­ity (2015, PDF hos­ted offsite)

Fast food’s twists & turns in Nigeria

Fast food has been cri­ti­cised for issues around food qual­ity, the loss of val­ued loc­al food cul­tures, and even for con­trib­ut­ing to obesity and oth­er health issues. This is as true in Niger­ia as any­where else.

Glob­al fast food cul­ture is in evid­ence in Nigeria’s bust­ling towns and cit­ies, not least in our chaot­ic mega-city of Lagos. There are no McDonald’s fran­chises in Niger­ia, but there are a host of oth­er for­eign and loc­al chains offer­ing fast fare to those in a rush.

While some of the fast food out­lets offer a Nigeri­an twist — Nigeri­a’s own Tan­tal­izers and Mr Bigg’s chains give the odd nod to Nigeri­an dishes among their fried chick­en meal deals — loc­al cuisines have suffered in places where fast food has a foothold.

Food culture & heritage in Nigeria

Why not pro­mote Nigeri­a’s Slow Food to both domest­ic and for­eign tourists?

The status of cuisine as intan­gible cul­tur­al her­it­age is import­ant, and is now recog­nised by UNESCO. For example, in Decem­ber 2020 the pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of couscous was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intan­gible Cul­tur­al Her­it­age.

Slow Food advoc­ates can help to cre­ate aware­ness around pre­serving loc­al cul­ture and food. This will not only bene­fit loc­al people, but could con­trib­ute to the UN’s sus­tain­ab­il­ity agenda, par­tic­u­larly around ‘Respons­ible Con­sump­tion and Production’.

As they already pro­mote pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion that con­serve some­thing valu­able in the country’s food cul­ture, Nigeria’s 34 Slow Food com­munit­ies and chapters may be help­ful in intro­du­cing good, clean, and fair loc­al fare to tour­ists’ itineraries.

Nigeria’s ofada rice: Delicious, nutritious, precious

One of Nigeri­a’s Slow Food con­vivia focuses on sup­port­ing ofada rice farm­ers to improve the sup­ply chain and farm­ing sys­tem of the tra­di­tion­al rice. 

Ofada rice is loc­al to south­w­est Niger­ia. It was first pro­duced in Ofada, Ogun State in the 1940s, hence its name. Since then, ofada rice has been pro­duced in oth­er states in south­w­est Nigeria.

Ofada rice is unpol­ished. It retains some bran, which strengthens the fla­vour and makes it more nutri­tious. It some­times goes through a fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess, which adds an aro­mat­ic quality.

The rice is usu­ally pro­duced on a small scale, hence it is more expens­ive when com­pared to oth­er vari­et­ies of rice avail­able in the coun­try. Nev­er­the­less it is enjoyed for its nutri­tion­al bene­fits by many people.

Tra­di­tion­ally, ofada rice is served in uma leaf (Thau­mato­coc­cus dani­el­lii), with a sauce called ayamase made with loc­al ingredi­ents like locust beans and assor­ted meat.

Sustainable food culture, sustainable food tourism in Nigeria

Achiev­ing food sus­tain­ab­il­ity neces­sit­ates acknow­ledging the close inter­de­pend­ence of dif­fer­ent aspects of food pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion, includ­ing the eco­nom­ic, envir­on­ment­al, and socio-cul­tur­al dimensions.

Poten­tially, such under­stand­ing can con­trib­ute to pro­tect­ing biod­iversity, encour­aging small-scale pro­duc­tion and safe­guard­ing loc­al know­ledge, tra­di­tions, and culture.

In the Nigeri­an con­text, a grow­ing sus­tain­able food (and Slow Food) cul­ture may be a neg­lected asset in devel­op­ing a thriv­ing tour­ism sector.

Agree? Dis­agree? What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Ofada rice from south­west­ern Niger­ia is usu­ally pro­duced on a small scale. It is more expens­ive as a res­ult. Image by Steph­en Ola­tunde (CC0) via unsplash.

About the author

Adenike Ade­bayo is a seni­or lec­turer in the Depart­ment of Tour­ism and Events at Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­sity, UK. Dr Ade­bayo was awar­ded her PhD in Tour­ism Man­age­ment from Can­ter­bury Christ Church Uni­ver­sity in 2018. Her research explored tour­ism policy and gov­ernance in Niger­ia. Adenike’s work focuses on sus­tain­able tour­ism, des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing, tour­ism gov­ernance, and tour­ism and event policies.