Folklore, Food and Oral Traditions

Olumide Labulo 

Long before Africa’s history was written in books, it was cooked in clay pots and told by firelight. Villages came alive at dusk, when the air was thick with the scent of palm oil and roasted yams. Under the soft hum of crickets, elders would gather children close, passing down legends older than their forefathers. And trust me, these stories weren’t separate from the meals; they were seasoned into them. A pot of egusi wasn’t just food, it was history, a taste of memory, a tangible connection to ancestors whose lives were recorded not in ink, but in recipes that carried as much weight as family names, proverbs, and tales.  It wasn't out of place to hear a mother stirring ogbono soup slip effortlessly into a tale of tortoise and his clever scheme, a grandmother pounding yams recall the journey of a river goddess and weaving myth into the rhythm of the pestle. Food was more than sustenance; it was a cultural archive, and oral tradition was the library where these flavours were preserved. 

In African folklore, food often takes on symbolic roles where the shared pot is unity, the last piece of meat is betrayal, and the forbidden fruit is temptation in its purest form. Simply put, food always postulates beyond a mere necessity. It's a metaphor for survival, greed, generosity, and wisdom. And because oral tradition thrives on imagery that feels close to home, meals become the perfect bridge between imagination and reality. For instance, Flora Nwapa’s "Efuru" affirms that it's a subtle measure of social standing and personal worth for a woman. As Efuru cooks and shares soup, she asserts her identity as a respected wife, whose skill and status in society depend on how well she feeds others, according to Igbo tradition. 

Similarly, Chinua Achebe’s "Things Fall Apart" equates yams to kingship. Okonkwo’s wealth and masculinity are measured in yam harvests and the richness of the soup his wives serve with fufu. When Okonkwo offers a grand feast to his mother’s kin, the abundance of food symbolizes clan unity and respect. Contradictorily, the refusal of kola nut in "Arrow of God" becomes an affront, a domestic insult with political weight between Ezeulu, the chief priest of Ulu, and representatives of the colonial administration. Food here serves as a form of language, communicating status, hierarchy, and cultural cohesion or breakdown when taboos are broken.

Even today, modern African literature that draws on oral tradition still leans into this connection. In Yemisi Aribisala’s "Longthroat Memoirs", soups like pepper soup, nsala, and edikang ikong are personalities, mood-setters, and cultural commentary tied to memory, identity, and gender roles. In Amos Tutuola’s "The Palm-Wine Drinkard", the drink itself becomes a character, a force through fantastical adventures that feel straight from a fireside storyteller’s breath. Writers and elders alike know that when you describe food, you are not just feeding the stomach; you are stirring the memory.

Also, Bernard Binlin Dadié’s "The Black Cloth" compiles Ivorian folktales where food often signals morality: trickster characters who steal yams or break food taboos meet ironic fates. In one tale, we see a king who eats a forbidden roast yam meant for sacrifice, doom himself. The taboo-breaking dish becomes poetic justice, enforced by the community and ancestral laws. Efua Sutherland joins by using food as a pedestal for respect and restitution in "A Voice in the Forest" when s wood nymph curses the village with food scarcity. Here, lack of food becomes a moral reckoning that forces character action and communal reconciliation.

The bond between food and folklore is deliberate. Meals are communal, and storytelling is too. Both are meant to be shared, repeated, and adapted. Just as a recipe can travel across generations, so is a folktale, picking up small changes along the way. Thanks to modernisation and influences. Sometimes a pinch of more pepper, sometimes a twist in the plot. Regardless, both are kept alive by practice, not preservation. You don’t just “remember” the story or the soup; you make it, you tell it, you pass it on. This is why the African oral tradition remains so powerful in the modern era. When we sit to eat pepper soup at a wedding, or sip palm wine at a naming ceremony, we are not just consuming food; we are partaking in a cultural script that has been performed for centuries. The taste carries echoes of the same stories that once floated on smoke-filled nights, with the same truths about what we share.