Golden, puffed balls of peeled and whipped cowpea batter, fried until crispy on the outside and soft within. Eaten piping hot at dawn with millet porridge or bread.

Why this dish? Akara, fried cowpea fritters, was the morning snack sold in the streets of Abeokuta by women traders — precisely those whom Funmilayo organized within the Abeokuta Women's Union. To fight the tax and colonial harassment was first to defend the livelihood of these akara and cloth sellers.

Do you even know who kept the markets of our city running? The women, from the first basket to the last. These fritters you see browning are thrown into the hot oil by our market sisters at cockcrow. You must whip the cowpea batter long, long, until it lightens and holds on the back of a spoon — otherwise the fritter will drink the oil instead of puffing. It was for the right of these women to live from their work, without being unjustly taxed, that I stood up.

How it was made : Cowpea is an ancient African legume, predating New World beans. Peeled by hand and pounded in a mortar before the arrival of mills, it yielded a batter aerated by wrist power. Akara was sold on street corners, wrapped in a leaf, accompanied by *ogi* (fermented corn porridge) or bread.

The contemporary twist : Arrange the akara in a pyramid on a banana leaf, with a small bowl of creamy porridge for dipping — an unabashed 'street food breakfast'.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti · Charactorium