Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends
ILLUSTRATION: BEN SHANNON/CBC

In Edmonton, there aren’t any butchers that sell goat meat with skin — like we had back in Nigeria By Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, for CBC First Person

This First Person column is the experience of Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, who immigrated from Nigeria to Edmonton.

Soji and I shivered by the car while Maduka fumbled with the ignition.

Whiteness glared all around us. The wind stung our cheeks. My nose ran. I hugged my swaddled body tighter.

When we’d picked Saturday for this journey, none of us had reckoned that it would be –30 C.

Was the goat worth all this trouble? Did we really have to go as far as Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., just to buy goat meat?

We wanted real goat meat, the one with skin we call ponmo. I hadn’t eaten goat meat with skin since I left Nigeria five months ago.

Goat meat with skin has a stringy tastiness that makes you chew with a smile on your face. We cringed at the other type sold at the smattering of African stores in Edmonton — the usual skinless meat! Splash it with many seasonings or Knorr cubes, and it still tastes bland after you cook it in a soup or stew.

The two or three times that we had managed to fry or grill it, its blandness reminded us that we had simply wasted our money. It also reminded us of the kind of delicacies we were missing while studying in Canada.

Worse still, it got us wishing we were with friends at a pub in Nigeria, slurping spicy goat meat pepper soup and criticizing the president whose misrule had incited thousands of Nigerians  to flee to Europe and North America.

An illustration of Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends
In this illustration, Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends are shown eating goat meat with skin in a pub. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

We had spent about three months planning this trip to buy proper goat meat as though our happiness and sanity depended on it. Perhaps they did.

We’d been craving goat meat with ponmo because it tasted familiar — like home. We all agreed that just savouring it would quell our longings for home, if only for one more time.

Maduka whooped when the car finally roared to life. Ten minutes later, we were plowing down Fort Road in his Nissan.

Halfway to Fort Saskatchewan, the car shuddered. Maduka jammed a foot on the gas pedal, swaying us in our seats. Soji cussed. I tried to fend off panic, but my heart flipped and dark images attacked my mind.

What could be more tragicomic than us dying on our way to purchase goat meat? What would the headlines say of three Black men found frozen in the car? Would we even make the news?

The car steadied and continued sailing down the grey road.

An illustration of Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends driving to buy goat meat
In this illustration, Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends are depicted dreaming of the goat meat with the skin — called ponmo — they craved as they drive to a farm. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

ROASTING AND FREEZING

​It took us about 35 minutes to reach the farm in Fort Saskatchewan.

As we got out of the car, I saw a Black man hauling two charred goats into his trunk. He nodded at us, climbed into his car and barrelled off.

A bearded, white farmer trudged out of a small shed. After exchanging pleasantries with us, he advised Soji and me to stay in the shed and warm up while he went with Maduka to choose the goats.

A cauldron roiled in the middle of the shed. Various sharp and spiky instruments hung from the rafters. A long table with patches of blood on its grooved surface loomed in a corner. It must be where the goat was cleaned and cut up.

An illustration of a cauldron for preparing the goat
In this illustration, a cauldron is shown bubbling in the middle of a shed. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

Soji and I huddled around the cauldron, rubbing our gloved hands over the rising steam.

Then Maduka appeared in the doorway. His teeth chattered as he huddled next to us and told us we would have to roast the goats ourselves.

“In this weather?” I protested.

“I thought roasting the goat was part of the cost,” Soji said, looking stricken.

“This is the first time I’m dealing with him,” Maduka explained. “He only kills the goat and skins it, unlike the other farmer who will roast the goat for a small fee.”

“If he skins it, what’s left of the goat? We won’t have any ponmo,” Soji said. “So, what’s goat meat without the ponmo?”

I knew I craved ponmo, but I was in Canada to pursue a degree — not roast goats. Moreover, I’d never roasted a goat before, and certainly not in such freezing weather.

I felt the chill in my teeth as we trembled before a blood-streaked goat hanging from a tall spit roaster. A hungry flame crackled from the burner, grasping at the carcass.

We agreed to take turns roasting the goats. While two of us scraped the singed hide and hairs, the other warmed himself in the shed. Snot dripped from our nostrils.

Our clothing stank of fumes by the time we finished. I had never felt so stinky and frostbitten in my whole life.

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends roasting a goat
In this illustration, Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike and his friends are shown warming themselves with the heat from a roasting goat. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

SIPPING SOUP, MISSING HOME

​As we drove away with trash bags of meat in the trunk, we were parched, drained and couldn’t speak much. We shivered all the way back to Edmonton despite the car’s heating.

Later that evening, while I was sipping pepper soup made with the charred goat, Maduka phoned me.

“My jacket still smells like hell,” he said.

“My throat feels a little sore,” I complained, swallowing.

“Uchman, what are you munching? You’ve started eating your goat meat already?”

“I know. Those goats punished us, so I had to deal with mine right away.”

We both laughed.

Maduka reminisced about isiewu, another goat delicacy among the Igbo people, and then fell silent. I could tell he missed home as much as I did.‍

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike holds a PhD in English from the University of Alberta and is an alumnus of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Umezurike is a co-editor of Wreaths for Wayfarers, an anthology of poems. He is the author of Wish Maker and Double Wahala, Double Trouble.

“What could be more tragicomic than us dying on our way to purchase goat meat?” Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike

(Ben Shannon/CBC)First Person | We drove through a blizzard for some goat meat, and it was totally worth it

Source: CBC News – Being Black in Canada