Festive dishes, entertaining, table setting, service styles and experimental cookery

Festive dishes are special dishes prepared for celebrations and special occasions. They are usually richer, more elaborate, more decorative and more costly than everyday meals, and often carry cultural or religious meaning.

Festive dishes across Nigeria

• Christmas and Easter: jollof and fried rice, chicken or turkey, salad, moi moi, assorted meat, Christmas cake, chin-chin, puff-puff; ofe nsala or nkwobi in the east.
• Eid el-Fitr and Eid el-Kabir (Sallah): ram meat (Eid el-Kabir sacrifice), tuwo shinkafa with miyan taushe or miyan kuka, masa, kilishi, dambu nama (shredded fried meat), fura, zobo, kunu, sweets.
• Naming ceremonies: in Yoruba culture, symbolic items (honey, salt, kola, bitter kola, palm oil, water, alligator pepper, sugar cane, fish) are tasted; feast of amala, pounded yam, jollof, small chops, cake.
• Traditional and church weddings: jollof rice, fried rice, ofada rice, pounded yam and egusi, ofe owerri, chicken, small chops (samosa, spring rolls, puff-puff, peppered gizzard, mini meat pies), wedding cake, palm wine and drinks for the traditional rites.
• New yam festival (Iri ji): roasted yam with palm oil sauce, yam porridge, pounded yam with soups.
• Birthdays: cake, small chops, party jollof, ice cream, drinks.
• Burials and remembrance: large-scale cooking of rice, soups, meat; often cooked by community women or caterers.
• Argungu festival: fish dishes.

Factors in choosing festive dishes

The occasion and its customs; religion of hosts and guests (no pork for Muslims; halal meat); number of guests; budget; season and availability; facilities and skill; time; type of service (buffet suits rice dishes and small chops); dietary needs of guests (diabetic, vegetarian, children).

Preparing festive dishes successfully

• Plan the menu and quantities early; make a shopping list and order of work.
• Prepare some items in advance (cakes baked days ahead; stew base frozen; chin-chin packed).
• Organise helpers with clear tasks.
• Maintain hygiene: large quantities of cooked food are a classic source of food poisoning; cool and store safely; serve hot food hot.
• Garnish and present attractively; label dishes at a buffet.

Small chops: a Nigerian party favourite

“Small chops” are assorted finger foods served at the start of parties or as the main refreshment at cocktail-style events: puff-puff, samosas (pastry triangles with spiced minced meat or vegetables), spring rolls, mini meat pies, mosa, peppered gizzard, chicken wings, “dodo” cubes on sticks, mini sausage rolls, and grilled prawns. They are served with dips such as sweet chilli or pepper sauce. Good small chops are uniform in size, freshly fried and well drained, served warm, and arranged attractively in trays or boxes with napkins and toothpicks. Because they are handled a great deal, hygiene (gloves or tongs, covered trays) is essential.