The trip unearthed, and cemented, the complexities of being both Nigerian and a Black American from the South—but it also allowed me to finally understand my Dad’s love of bread. There, in the kitchen of the home we’d rented, sat a mound of it. Over the nine days I spent in Lagos with one of my sisters, cousins, and aunties, the ever-present bread diminished as it accompanied snacks of spiced suya and plates teeming with jollof rice, chicken, and coleslaw.
On the same trip, as I ran through the city’s markets chasing fabric for clothes, I saw stacks of white and light-brown agege stacked high, in piles that seemed to reach for the sky. Hordes of people pointed and spoke in a flurry of hands and arms, hoping to get a slice or a whole loaf—some, a snack for now; others, something for the road. Even this casual sighting of the bread while out in the world signified something to me; that there existed connections and ties to my Dad’s memory everywhere, if I pay attention.
Like my dad, agege has a history of travel and migration baked into it. Fresh Agege Bread, a documentary featuring Nigerian food writer and researcher Ozoz Sokoh, highlights those cross-cultural ties. Jamaican Amos Shackleford, often called the ‘bread king of Nigeria,’ is responsible for bringing it to the country after quitting his job on the Nigerian Railway in 1921 and embarking on a new venture: bread making. With a tool he created, called the dough break, he was able to produce the cloud-like texture that agege bread is now so known for. Unknowingly, he created what would later be a symbol of Nigerian heritage through his loaves. Today, bakeries like Alpha Bakery in the namesake town of Agege still make his bread the traditional way. I didn’t make it there on my last trip. Maybe, hopefully, I’ll make it there on my next.
Because two years after my Dad’s death, I’m more aware than ever of how I reach for bread, just like him. It is a compulsion almost, something I can’t stave off. I learned to love bread from my Dad, just as I learned to be generous with others, to be patient, to be kind, even if it’s your last attempt. And I’m brimming with gratitude that the bread that most reminds me of him is intertwined in what it means to be Nigerian—and baked into the daily lives of many.
