Abak Atama Soup
Aperçu
Abak Atama is a palm fruit soup of the Ibibio people of Akwa Ibom State in southern Nigeria, and it is defined by a leaf that gives it its name and almost nothing else does. The palm fruit base is shared. It is the same concentrate that underpins banga soup in the Niger Delta and ofe akwu among the Igbo, palm nuts boiled and pounded, with the pulp extracted and used as the body of the soup. What separates these dishes from one another is entirely the spicing and the greens. Atama is the distinguishing element here. Botanically Heinsia crinita, locally called bush apple, it is a leaf grown in yards across the region and used almost exclusively for this soup. It is strongly aromatic and is used sparingly, shredded very finely and added in small quantity, because too much overwhelms everything else in the pot. Around it sit the usual components: assorted meat, dried fish, periwinkle, crayfish and pepper. It is a regional soup rather than a national one, and many Nigerians outside Akwa Ibom and Cross River have never eaten it.
