To bread, it is, just express yourself without bounds

A bread to realise

There are many liberation struggles going on around the world, but there is one I was not aware of until yesterday evening, the liberation of the loaf is the battle cry of bread and the art of baking what the United Artists for Africa mistakenly suggested was God turning stones to bread because that never happened.

Having bought takeaway Togolese beans (èwà Àgànyìn), which is mashed black-eyed beans with a red chilli sauce, the only adequate staple to go with it is Agége bread (a soft, dense loaf of bread), which I soon learnt, I could not get anywhere in Cape Town that I decided to bake my own.

All pans run free

Asking Alexa to find a recipe on YouTube was a waste of time even with my putting on a thick Nigerian accent as it offered either Gigi or Gay for Agege, it was just better to type it in. Having gotten a good idea of what to do, I acquired the ingredients and utensils and set to baking bread, my very first time.

After all I had done, one thing was missing, a lid for my loaf pan. Apparently, you can get every choice loaf pan for baking bread, in any material you might desire including silicone that takes heat up to 230℃, but you cannot get for the want of trying in stores, specialist outlets, or online, a loaf pan with a cover or a lid.

Perseverance in lack

Then, I improvised, I wrapped the loaf pan in heavy-duty foil, which kept the loaf in shape, but I had to have it baking in the oven for thrice the recommended time because the heat was not getting to the loaf as it would have if there were just a lid. You have to ask, what happened to loaf pan lids or why no one around here seems to desire to bake bread with the loaf liberally expressing itself beyond the mould?

Then again, what I might not get on the retail market most definitely is in the professional bakeries, because typical bread for toast is moulded in an almost square cross-section to a rectangular length. I might have an alternative, using disposable aluminium food trays with cardboard covers. It might suffice until I accidentally find a loaf pan that invited a lid companion to the party, else, it is to England where the freedom of the loaf is still a subject of debate rather than of right.

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Bet Lehem in Tuican hom

From the ancient to the authentic

I was in Tuican hom in modern-day Twickenham, the place between two rivers, the Thames and the Crane, or so it was written of a place first recorded in 704 AD and that was a long time ago, just as I was with a friend I had known from way back when my innocence was losing its virtue.

From the many things we did and the memories we shared and then brunch at an authentic Italian restaurant, for many of the patrons, Italian did speak, we made for the station of carriages drawn not by horses and my last bit of hand tissues was left in the hands of a man who by trying to avoid the crowds, slipped and fell into the road, drawing blood from his nose bridge. We worried, but he was fine.

Loafing towards a seat

Passing through the ticket gates and down to the platform where my electric-powered carriage was to arrive in just under 10 minutes, I could almost gambol towards a vacant seat, but there was none as strewn across three seats were what I thought were bags of shopping, but the lady on seeing me made to remove the bags for me to take a seat.

Strangely, the bags were full of loaves of bread, different kinds and shapes, but before I landed a quip to feed my curiosity, she said she had all this bread leftover from tending a Celtic Bakers store at the Twickenham Farmers' Market, all variants of sourdough bread that she could not throw away and she offered us some, for free.

Breaking the bread of blessing

For a moment, we were in a moment of spiritual transfiguration to Bet Leḥem (“House of Bread”) in Hebrew, or Bethlehem as we now know it, the lady a priest with knowledge, wisdom, and revelation of breads like a sommelier, showing us the scriptures of bread afresh and winning us over to a new experience of bread so different and unique.

Even I was caught in the spirit of bread so divine, I was given a loaf and offered more, but there may be others just in need of this sustenance. Another party, a lady too got involved in the conversation between the three of us, she also took a loaf before she asked about a Jewish sweet loaf, and there was one on offer, too big for one to take and so we broke the bread and shared the blessing of life.

Her carriage arrived to take her swiftly off to Windsor where she might even find herself the welcome audience in the court of Elizabeth II, before our own carriage arrived, wherein I bid the priestess farewell not to be taken to taken to my Waterloo, but to emerge at the pleasure gardens of vokzal (Russian) or Vauxhall railway station, today. [BBC: Waterloo and Vauxhall]

We shared bread and broke bread.

Agege Bread by desire and amazing consequence

Whistle-stop London

At the behest of Funmi Iyanda, I found myself on a train to London on Saturday soon after a conversation where we decided we need to have a chat.

I left home in shorts and a shirt, wearing boat shoes, a straw hat and nothing else, not even a jacket because we were having one of those unusually glorious summer days in England. Sunday morning was hardly the precursor to a summer's day, it rained and I was not dressed for it.

Arriving at hers, I settled down to a cassava meal with a mix of three different stews that I insisted on having despite her protestations to the contrary, I insisted and enjoyed it.

The evening passed with visitors literally exhausting us, so we never really went out to the US Independence Day picnic because as usual, our good friends are not the best or most reliable timekeepers for engagements.

Good view but the food

On Sundays when I am with Funmi, we have breakfast / brunch at Ginger & White where we meet an eclectic crowd of Bohemian types over scrambled eggs, assorted organic breads and spreads. Their baked beans and peanut butter are just completely something else.

Anyway, as it transpired, we did not make G&W round the corner, but were persuaded to make a beeline to Monument Station to Sky Garden on the 32^nd Floor at 20 Fenchurch Street where the building widens at the top, earning it the name, The Walkie-Talkie. The curve on the building can exhibit the qualities of a concave mirror reflecting and concentrating incidental sunlight to the point of melting parts of cars parked in its vicinity.

Getting in the Sky Garden building almost exceeded the security requirements for international travel at airports; names, phone numbers, metal detectors and baggage scanning equipment, all for the sake of breakfast. We got up there and whilst we might have been bowled over by the views, that was the only thing going for the Sky Garden, the location, cold and unfriendly, the menu was at best perfunctory. A bloody waste of time, to put it mildly.

A place to forget

We left wondering whether to return to the tried and tested or explore the possibilities at Borough Market just one station’s stop down at London Bridge.

We decided on the latter and after perambulating for about 15 minutes, we settled for Le Pain Quotidien where the fare was passable for survivalist mastication rather than for taste or culinary skill.

Femi who had joined us at Le Pain Quotidien was very helpful as I had purposed that on my visit to London, I will get some Agege Bread. She called Anino who suggested we try the Agege Bread shop on Deptford High Street and along the way we would have been able to get some moin-moin for Funmi too.

The Agege Bread adventure

We caught a black cab and made for Deptford, stopping in front of the Agege Bread shop where on entry we were met with a feast of Nigerian delicacies that excited us beyond Pavlovian abandon.

Moin-moin, asaro, ewa aganyin, puff-puff, fresh fish stew, chin-chin, buns, jollof rice, fried rice, fried plantain (dodo), suya and much else, I was whooping with extreme glee that my order probably took the best part of 30 minutes. Visit the All Nigerian Recipes website for an introduction to the vast palate of Nigerian cuisine.

As we were making up our minds about what to get, the proprietor and owner of the Agege Bread business came in and a conversation started, first with Femi and then with Funmi and the next 3 or so hours we were entertained and regaled with his perceptions of living and thriving in the UK having arrived from Nigeria some 30 years ago.

An inspiration and new friend

Whilst Agege Bread might mean many things to many people, the trademark and brand belongs to the Agege Bread business in the UK and it is the standard by which imitation sweet breads are measured.

In all this, we got to visit the East Street outlet of Agege Bread walking through the workrooms and if there was enough time, we might have even visited the main factory in Greenwich.

We were inspired very much by this very confident, self-assured entrepreneur whose perspectives of integration and work ethic left us almost ashamed of what some other Nigerians come to do in the UK. Agege Bread is soon to have a shop at London Heathrow's Terminal 5 too.

Many of the points he addressed are probably best covered in another blog, but the great revelation and achievement of the weekend was how the simple desire for Agege Bread led us to an unforgettable encounter with an ambassador of values those of Nigerian heritage can espouse and exhibit if we decide to be the best we can be.

A friendship was blossoming and part of that was he gave us a lift, not to the nearest station but all the way back home in North West London before returning to his home in Kent.