Each time you hear the word, Sugar, I wonder what comes to your mind? Your response might be related to age, wellness, culture, name of a musical group, lyrics of songs, poetic reference, and all others. But the common denominator of that ubiquitous and enigmatic substance often seen as a permanent member of the dining table, kitchen, or even akpase is sugar. It is the universal name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, mostly used in food, medication, and cultural events.
While I shall return to discussing the place of sugar in cultural events, let me acknowledge that the common type of sugar (sucrose) most people often refer to is the basic sugar, the white (or brown) crystals used in homes and cooking, most likely made from sugarcane. Apart from sucrose, there are six other types of sugar (Fructose, Galactose, Glucose, Lactose, Maltose and Xylose) which you would have tasted in one form or the other at different stages of life. Note that I have not mentioned Ajinomoto and Maggi or similar cubes, which are chemical additives and said to be very harmful to the body, in spite of the taste they elicit.
What is garri, or akamu, or ikoko or tea, without sugar? In the 50s, 60s and 70s, how would you dare write a love letter (cleverly passed through hymn or exercise books at a school assembly to ze oza room (or ferson) without the phrase ‘you are the sugar in my tea’? You would have thought that this sugar in your tea is a huge substance delivered by a tipper lorry! Not at all. One tea spoonful of sugar only contains just 4g, which gives you 68kJ (16 calories) of energy. It has no protein and no fat, but it is all carbohydrates, containing 2g fructose and 2g glucose. It is that 4 grammes that inflict the permanent damage (positively or otherwise) to your taste buds and your love life. For those with enhanced sweet tooth (those who love sweet things), they, of course, can load a normal cup of tea with several generous helpings of tea spoonful of sugar!
Although we all grew up to know the colour of sugar as white, there are now other colours, different flavours and as additives in soft drinks, lollies, pastries, cakes, chin-chin, popcorn, sweets, etc. However, do not be deceived by the colours and flavours. The nutritional value of these sugars is very similar. As is often said, sugar is sugar, whether white, brown, or raw. By the way, there are 56 different names for sugar, all in a bid to conceal the real dangers eating too much of the substance.
All over the world, due to the harmful nature of excessive sugar to the body systems, we are often advised to limit the consumption of sugar and foods with added sugars. On average, people eat about 15 teaspoons of added sugar each day, and most of this is hidden within processed foods, so we actually never realise we are eating sugar in excess and what is desirable.
The general advice is to use only small amounts of sugar to enhance the flavour of nutritious foods or for some people to avoid sugar totally! Often the bottom line advice on sugar intake is that consuming too much sugar may worsen cognitive decline, obesity, increase gout risk, harm your kidneys, lead to diabetes, risk of heart disease, higher risk of developing acne, cancer, depression, accelerated skin aging process, increase in cellular aging, draining of energy, fatty liver and cause cavities in your teeth. Which child cares about all these harmful effects of eating too much sugar? You can tell it to the marines for all they care.
Try saying that to an Ogori child in the 50s, 60s and 70s, especially during Ovia Osese festival and you would forever be regarded as a very wicked (kill-joy, dog-in-a-manger) uncle or auntie who must be avoided like a plague! As children, what else do we look forward to during the Ovia Osese festival, except gifts of cubes of white sugar and some slices of coconut? So how dare you deny us or dissuade us from the full partake in the Ovia Osese ‘holy communion’ of the community and think you would be in the good books of the children whose only dream is to wake up to an Ovia Osese morning to cubes of sugar to be gathered in as many runs as you can undertake to as many Ivia as you can make the rounds to.
Those were the good old days in Ogori. I am not too sure if sugar distribution still forms a significant aspect of the gift culture of Ivia. I would have tested this at the forthcoming Ovia Osese Festival if I were still under the age of 15. Going round Ivia homes to receive a cube of sugar (no matter how I convince people that I am researching into Sugar gifting) would cause the community to call you names or wonder if excessive consumption of sugar in yester years have led to an accelerated degenerative cognitive situation or an enhanced stage of unmitigated aging process.
But as I write this and reminisce over those days we used to go round all of Ogori from Ileteju to Enibe through Osobane (there was no Ayeromi then) and out through Opa and Aiyelofa to Okibo collecting cubes of sugar from Ivia, I can literarily feel the sweetness of sugar on my lips and tongue. Oh boy, how sweet are Ivia sugar cubes!
In our competition of those days, collecting a packet full of sugar cubes was heroic and guaranteed that your episode of garri drinking either before, during or after school would not be in vain or sugarless or should I say sugar free? In fact, the more sugar you had in your garri buoyed by Odiobo or Otamurun ebi was always the highlight of the reminder of how successful your sugar collecting trips to Ivia homes during Ovia Osese had been.
But what was the genesis of the sugar gifting aspect of the Ovia Osese festival? Well, before coming to physical terms with sugar distribution at Ovia Osese was its use during naming ceremonies to symbolise that the life of the baby being named will be as sweet as sugar. You and I know better now to regard that as wishful prayer, which, in reality, hardly comes true all of the time. Life is full of sweet and bitter periods. The bitter-sweet combination and experience depends on your ingenuity at managing your journey or a struggle through this life (appropriately called ẹrộ in Ọkọ- Ogori).
The information gathered so far is that sugar became introduced into the Ovia Osese gifting culture, when the first set of educated families brought home their Ajebota girls for the Ovia ceremony and in a bid to impress the Ajepako at home brought in what they considered rare, scarce or indeed not existent at home then. Rather than go to the farm to harvest sugarcane and distribute in stems, the Ivia then assimilated sugar distribution into their genre or chest of drawers full of gifts which also include sweet, igorigo, biscuits, kuli-kuli and other finger foods with sugar additive.
Please do not spoil my Ovia Osese sugar collection itinerary by suggesting to me to forget about sugar due to all the ills it causes. I do not even want to hear that salaries have not been paid, and hence, parents can not afford a packet of sugar for the brand new Ovia to distribute. Please keep all the negative stories about sugar for now and let me, as a dashing Ogori youth, look forward to that aspect. We would simply label as fantabulous. The Ovia Osese Festival is one period in Ogori that the need to avoid sugar is disregarded with impunity by the young ones. Even the Ivia often see their service to the young ones as incomplete if they do not distribute cubes of sugar, even if we all end up using the teeth to cut the cubes (the cubes were much harder than they are nowadays) into halves or quarters or even more, so that it could go round!
What else is sugar, if not its attraction, and how it connects the growing boy and girl of Ogori to the Ovia Osese Festival? What is the Ovia Osese Festival at Ogori without the dustribution of cubes of sugar by the Ivia?
Give me the cubes, ibeg (please).
Emeritus Professor Olugbemiro Jegede