Restaurant critic Jimi Famurewa explores the myths, mysteries and memories of west African barbecue. Plus a suya recipe from Zoe Alakija
It was death, ultimately, that had led me to the suya spot. This was the pandemic-throttled February of 2021, when a drugged sense of emotional exhaustion reigned and a return to something like normality felt at once within our collective grasp and agonisingly out of reach. Word had come through that one of my aunts had died in Lagos. Not from Covid but of a sudden heart attack. It is hard to know what to do in moments of grief at the best of times. But there and then, as air travel remained a virtual impossibility and our vast, widely dispersed Nigerian family had never felt more atomised or isolated, it was even harder.
The moment, it seemed, called for whatever socially distanced togetherness my mother, brothers and I could muster; it called for the comforting certainty of a barbecued beef dish, vigorously spiced and with the deep umami of roasted peanuts, that is practically a Nigerian way of life. Yes, the moment called for suya. And so, that is how I found myself outside Alhaji Suya’s commercial kitchen on a south London industrial estate, waiting for my order. Waiting, really, for enlivening, edible solace wrapped in pink butcher’s paper.
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