As a Nigerian woman living in Lagos and pushing 30, I have been to a number of parties to last a lifetime: from being a teenager eager to leave my parents’ firm grip on me, to being an adult who likes to hang out with her friends with loud music and endless cocktails to keep me buzzing all night. With my years of experience, I can tell you that the best hangover cure is actually “swallow”.
When I say swallow, I’m talking pounded yam and ogbono or fufu and oha. I learnt this from my first hangover when I was 16 at a friend’s house in Warri. We raided her father’s collection of alcohol, and believe me when I say I don’t know what I drank, but I ended up sleeping in my friend’s vomit. The next day, my head was swimming and the entire place stank to hell. I kept puking for the rest of the day, and not even water could stay down.
I tried to take medicine to stop the retching but even those came back up. Lucozade boost didn’t work either. Somehow, when my body realised that there was absolutely nothing left inside me to reject, it let me calm down enough for me to nap for some time. By the time I woke up, my friend had cooked banga soup and made swallow to go with it. Despite my fear of puking, I swallowed a few lumps because starch and banga are my favourite things to eat – I just couldn’t resist. To my utter surprise, I didn’t throw up. In fact, I gradually started to feel like a human being again. I finished my serving and asked for more.
For a long time, I thought it had to be starch and banga, so all through my days at the University of Benin, whenever I went clubbing at Oxygene (now known as Terrazo), I had to stop by Toseton, a local restaurant close to the university for a hot plate of banga and starch. Something about the heat and the spice in the food cured the nausea and dizzy feeling that overwhelmed me in the mornings after wild nights. One day, I went there and they didn’t have banga soup. I had to settle for pounded yam and ogbono soup. Anybody who’s ever tried Toseton’s food knows that their ogbono soup is another hit. I sat on the floor of my self-con apartment loading lump after lump of swallow into my belly until they soaked all the hangover up.
As an adult, I became curious about the chemistry of swallow being the best hangover cure and I discovered that it was the carbs involved. When you consume alcohol, your body’s glycogen stores become depleted, which results in fatigue, weakness, and headaches. Eating a heavy meal of swallow and your preferred soup can help restore the glycogen in your body and give you the strength you need to get through the day.
For example, one wrap of pounded yam is 140g of carbs alone, and if you’re eating something like efo riro which consists of spinach as its main ingredient, you’re replenishing folate lost by consuming too much alcohol, which is a natural B9 vitamin needed for healthy cell functions in the body. Then there’s meat which is the crowning glory of every swallow meal. According to research, alcohol prevents the absorption of specific amino acids, leading to a deficiency in the compounds essential for regulating mood and energy levels in the brain. So by eating meat during a hangover, your body breaks down the protein into amino acids restoring energy levels that were lost while consuming alcohol.
In addition to carbs and proteinous food, swallow meals are also rich in vitamins and minerals that help fight the negative effects of alcohol in your body. For example, Cassava and yam are good sources of vitamin C, which helps fight off the inflammation that comes with hangovers. They are also high in potassium, which regulates your body’s electrolyte balance and prevents dehydration. Another great source of vitamins is pepper. This is why pepper soup is also a great hangover remedy. Let’s not forget the antioxidants and fibre from the greens involved in typical Nigerian soups. All these help the body to recover and combat oxidative stress which is at the centre of alcohol hangover symptoms.
While all of the above might explain the biological process of recovering from a hangover, the best part of eating swallow in the morning for me after a long night is simply how comforting and satisfying it is to eat. After a night of overindulgence, there’s nothing as good as loading a hot bowl of swallow and soup. It feels like a hug for your stomach, especially as it calms your nausea or any other discomfort you may be feeling.
I know everyone’s body is different, and what works for me may not work for you. But as someone who has spent years party-hopping and waking up to hangovers threatening to take my life, believe me when I tell you that hot pounded yam and ogbono soup after you’ve struggled to take a bath is the closest thing to a hangover cure I have found. So next time you find yourself nursing a hangover, skip the fried eggs and coffee, and order a bowl of your favourite swallow and soup. Your body and your taste buds will be grateful.
