Title: Tales and Tatase: A Nigerian Recipe Book Garnished with Humorous Stories
Author: Atinuke Aliu-Edomobi
Year of Publication: 2026
Number of Pages: 108
These days, watching Nigerian food content online can be exhausting. One chef is asking for turkey bacon. Another wants beef pepperoni. Someone else is using an ingredient that can only be found after a three-hour drive and two visa applications. Before long, the average Nigerian quietly closes Instagram, reaches for garri and sugar, and accepts their fate.
Thankfully, Atinuke Aliu Edomodi isn’t interested in stressing anybody. She simply wants to cook good food, tell good stories and remind readers that delicious meals don’t have to come with complicated ingredients or impossible techniques.
The title Tales and Tatase already tells readers this isn’t going to be an ordinary cookbook. Why tatase? Why not pepper, onions or crayfish? Before opening the first page, curiosity has already won. Then the stories begin.
Very quickly, readers realise this isn’t just a cookbook. It is part autobiography, part comedy and somewhere in between, a collection of recipes that almost gets forgotten because Atinuke keeps distracting everyone with one hilarious childhood story after another. She has a gift for storytelling.
One minute she’s explaining a recipe; the next minute she’s telling a story that makes readers forget they were supposed to be measuring seasoning cubes. It almost feels like sitting in someone’s kitchen while they cook and gist at the same time.
Atinuke writes exactly the way many Nigerians talk. There is no unnecessary grammar. No trying to sound like a celebrity chef. She simply says things as they come to her, and somehow it works beautifully.
Then there are the pictures. The meals don’t look like food arranged by television chefs. They look like the kind of food your mother would proudly place on the dining table on a Sunday afternoon. Looking through the pages is dangerous. Hunger is almost guaranteed.
The funniest part is her cooking instructions. Most cookbooks confidently tell readers exactly what to do. Atinuke’s instructions sometimes sound more like, ‘Well…this is what I did. May God help you too.’
At some point, it almost feels as though she’s giving cooking directions over the phone while rushing to another appointment.
Readers may find themselves laughing and wondering, ‘Madam, should I continue cooking or not?’ Strangely, they do. And somehow, they trust her. Perhaps because she never pretends to know everything.
She isn’t trying to convince anyone she’s the next Chef Fregs. She’s simply sharing the recipes that work for her, and that honesty makes the book even more enjoyable.
Teenagers learning to cook will feel comfortable with this book. So will adults whose greatest achievement in the kitchen is boiling water without burning the pot. Even readers who have absolutely no intention of cooking may still enjoy the book because the stories are just as entertaining as the recipes.
One chapter that will immediately grab every Nigerian’s attention is Party Jollof. Who isn’t curious about party jollof? The chapter almost feels like discovering a national secret. Readers become so excited that they temporarily forget there are other recipes waiting for them.
Another thing that stands out is Atinuke’s personality. She comes across as the kind of friend everyone wants. The one who feeds people, laughs easily and somehow has a story for every occasion. At times, readers may even wish they had been invited to one of the meals featured in the book.
The photographs of her friends enjoying the food make the experience even warmer. For a second, they almost look too perfect, until familiar faces begin to appear and readers realise these are genuine moments shared around real food.
The Nigerian slang sprinkled throughout the book makes it even more enjoyable. International readers may occasionally pause to decode a few expressions, but Nigerians will feel completely at home.
The only small complaint is that the book deserves to be bigger. Some of those mouth-watering photographs almost beg for a larger page size so readers can admire every delicious detail before running to the kitchen.
In the end, Tales and Tatase refuses to stay in one lane. It is a cookbook. It is a collection of childhood memories. It is a comedy. It is comfort reading. And somewhere between the laughter, the stories and the recipes, Atinuke quietly reminds readers that the best meals are rarely about expensive ingredients. They are about home, family, friendship and the memories made around the table. Just don’t read it on an empty stomach. You’ve been warned.