INdulge: Traditional Nigerian stew with rich history is best thing I ate in Indy this week

Indianapolis Star

4 hours ago

Juneteenth, which commemorates the day the last slaves of the Confederacy were freed in 1865, has come and gone. However — if you'll allow me a brief moment on my radical, extremist soapbox — one could argue you don't need a federal holiday to support Black-owned businesses in your community.
Among those businesses are Indianapolis' various West African restaurants. For this week's INdulge, I sampled a sliver of that robust culinary tradition with:
If you're unfamiliar with Nigerian food, I suspect you could wander up to just about any restaurant that serves it, order a dish completely at random and end up with a memorably flavorful surprise. For an idea of where to start, consider the ayamase at Jollof Buka on the Near Westside.
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Ayamase (aye-ah-mah-shay) is a thick sauce made with a blend of green peppers (usually bell peppers and/or unripe chilies), aromatic vegetables, hard-boiled egg and irú, fermented African locust beans. Various cuts of meat are also a common ingredient; Jollof Buka prepares its ayamase ($16.95) with shreds of turkey and chicken. These components are cooked in bleached palm oil, which has a distinct yet hard-to-place flavor I can best describe as hardy.
The ayamase has a semi-dry, fibrous consistency similar to other spice pastes like Mexican salsa macha or Indonesian sambal. It packs a slight vegetal sweetness thanks to the peppers, while the meat and egg make it a well-rounded, savory meal. Though the stew is not especially spicy, an overly ambitious spoonful won't go unnoticed on the way down your throat.
While not as well-known as jollof, Nigeria's national dish of spiced rice from which Jollof Buka gets its name (buka is a term for a casual restaurant in Yoruba, one of three major languages spoken in Nigeria), ayamase is extremely popular in the West African country. Unlike centuries-old jollof, ayamase has likely only been around for about a hundred years.
The most popular origin story for ayamase tells of a woman living in the small Nigerian town of Ikenne named Felicia Ajibabi Adesina, who in the 1920s developed a sauce of peppers and palm oil to serve at her food stand with Ofada rice (ayamase is often referred to as Ofada stew). Supposedly, Adesina's short-tempered husband would often get into scraps with neighbors, prompting concerned friends and family members to call him Mase, a Yoruba word that means 'don't' — as in, come on, man, don't hit him. In turn, Adesina's wildly popular sauce became known as obe aya Mase, meaning 'Mase's wife's sauce,' and eventually just ayamase.
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While the fun stories behind our favorite foods typically fall apart under scrutiny, the legend of Felicia Adesina actually seems to hold up. It's the only historical explanation for ayamase I can find, including in one of Nigeria's oldest independent newspapers, The Guardian.
Amid a lack of contrary evidence, I'm content to believe the tale of Adesina's fiery entrepreneurial spirit and similarly combustible husband. Whoever its inventor, ayamase remains a strong representative of Nigerian cuisine. Though summer generally doesn't stir cravings of hot, spiced stew, I'd say a visit Jollof Buka is worth the sweat.
What: Ayamase, $16.95
Where: Jollof Buka, 2501 W. Washington St., [phone], thejollofbuka.com/menufy
In case that's not your thing: Jollof Buka's menu caters to diners of widely varying curiosity levels, so it's OK if you're totally new to Nigerian food. The jollof with jerk chicken ($18), fried spiced chicken wings ($9) or vegetarian okra soup ($16.49) should all ring reasonably familiar to the Western palate. Meanwhile, more adventurous eaters can swing for peppered ponmo (cow skin cooked in chili paste, $16) or the spicy goat stir fry called asun ($16, weekends only).