“Despite Nigerian cuisine being more overexposed than the Kardashians — with our boring plantains, stewed cow feet, peppered goat’s head, silky palm oil, sweet coconuts and smoked crayfish — there is still at least one thing folks don’t know about Nigerian fare: EVERYTHING!”
Meet Tunde Wey, Detroit-based chef and restaurateur at (revolver) and flawless craftsman of persuasive e-mail. He’s touring cities around the U.S. and cooking up Nigerian goat dinners all along the way — and he’ll be in Crown Heights on December 17.
The dinner series, entitled Lagos after his place of birth, has already made stops in New Orleans, Chicago and Minneapolis. Wey shared his tongue-in-cheek insights about why you should eat with him: “Of course people are tired of Nigerian food; it’s ubiquitous, not sexy anymore and passé. Nigerian cuisine is way past its heyday — which was sometime in the early 1900s, when everything Nigerian was moving from hipster cool to mainstream vogue.” But he goes on to explain that the tour is really about teaching and celebrating the food of his childhood and making friends and sharing great meals along the way.
You can eat the goat (and hopefully also the crayfish) at Pacifico’s Fine Foods. We can only hope that Wey will bring his spot-on cultural references and well-aimed snark to the dinner table alongside the cow feet and plantains.
