Dr Piriye Kiyaramo, Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to Bayelsa Governor on Tourism says local Ijaw delicacies could be harnessed to drive economic progress for the Niger Delta region.
Kiyaramo who is also facilitator of the South-South Tourism Roundtable Initiative on Tuesday called on the Ijaws to trace and document its food culture, adding that food tourism support sustainable tourism as food evokes a sense of community and pleasant memories of destinations.
Kiyaramo made these known in a statement in commemoration of 2023 World Food Day with the theme: “History, And Everything You Need To Know” in Yenagoa.
Kiyaramo who doubles as Director-General of the Ernest Ikoli Visitor Information Centre Yenagoa, noted that food, being part of the rich Ijaw cultural heritage is usually shared within and between communities, while adapting to changing circumstances in the local settings.
According to the tourism practitioner, the development of food culture can help a tourist destination draw new visitors as food often reflects an entire nation’s eating habits.
He explained that culinary tourism can teach visitors valuable cultural lessons.
“Food tourism can also be a way to support local economies and promote sustainable tourism. By patronising local restaurants and food producers, travellers can contribute to the local economy and help preserve culinary traditions,” Kiyaramo said.
He said sharing meals with others could bring people together, promote socialisation, and foster a sense of belonging.
He explained that whether it is a family gathering, a community feast, or a religious celebration, food is often used as a way to mark important events, bringing people together which creates the sense of community among the people.
According to the governor’s aide, sometimes locaĺ food may carry related culinary practices such as the use of chopsticks and among others with existing culinary traditions to form new syncretic cuisines such like that of the Tex-Mex food, a subtype of Southwestern cuisine found in the American Southwest, which evolved from a combination of Mexican and US Southwest food traditions.
Kiyaramo further explained that although food culture is adaptable, food is tightly linked to people’s cultural identities, or the ways they define and distinguish themselves from other groups of people, informing that food also travels across cultures perhaps more often and with more ease than any other traditions.
The renowned tourism expert commend the President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) Prof Benjamin Okaba for inaugurating a Committee on *jawCulture, chaired by the Chief Historian and Archivist of Bayelsa State, Dr. Stephen Olali recently.
He noted that food is part of cultural identities, explaining further that the term cuisine has been used to refer to specific cultural traditions of cooking, preparation, and consumption of food.
According to him, while the urban areas may tend to shift and adapt cuisine more frequently than rural communities, those aspects of cuisine most tightly linked to the people’s identity tend to change slowly in all settings as also applicable to the Ijaw nation.
The governor’s tourism aide said there is urgent need for the Ijaws to make frantic efforts to sustain her food culture with a view to properly documenting and preserving it for posterity, citing the Japanese short-grain rice which plays an important role in Japanese identity.
Kiyaramo said a food culture where a plate of food containing white rice on one half and a stew with chunks of beef, potatoes, and carrots on the other half which originated from the cultural heritage of a particular food culture has today spread round the world.