The land that forbids mushroom

Hello beautiful people!

I'm sure you're doing good👍.

I don't know if it's insomnia, I'm finding it difficult to sleep these days, it's not like I don't feel dizzy, I do but my mind won't allow me to sleep. Each time I sleep, I'd be thinking that I'm wasting precious time. I'm fighting it though and I'm going to win.

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Let's talk about how some region and countries forbid certain foods, animals and plants.

I think this mentality started with what happened in the Holy book regarding to Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden. God told them not to eat a particular fruit.

After that instance, some lands, regions, countries and gods adopted the same pattern.

I don't know about other countries but in my own country, NIGERIA, there are some foods that are forbidden in certain regions due to some beliefs on the gods of the land.
Just like the city I'm currently residing, they forbid us from eating snail and I like snail so much. But I still eat it whenever I want to eat, I don't give value to most of those beliefs.

We have a lot of places that don't allow the consumption of mushroom due to the fact that their gods detest it.

Let me share with you one of my encounters violating one of these laws with mushroom.

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We grew up in a community that enjoy eating mushrooms of different kinds because we have it grown in our farms. We hardly prepare any meal without it including rice. Due to how we like it, it became a part of us to the extent that we buy mushrooms when they are out of season in our farms.

One particular holiday during high school, we traveled to the western part of NIGERIA to spend the holiday with grandma. It was a typical country side and farming was their main occupation.

The first time we visited farm, we saw fresh mushrooms everywhere on dead trees, I and my siblings became so happy because it's a call for mushroom feast. After working and about to go home, I quickly collected a bag to harvest mushrooms and my grandma shouted at me, why? She said they forbid eating of mushroom in the community. What!

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At first, I didn't believed that, who would have all these fresh mushrooms and fails to eat them because of the so called gods of the land? After much drags and persuasion by grandma, I surrounded to her.

You know that kind of feeling to see a well prepared food but won't be able to eat? That was the feeling we had. It was as if we were punished.

I'm the type that doesn't believe in forbidding of food, afterall God created everything, why should I forbid them? I concluded that the law of the land will only work against the indigene of the land and not visitors, so I must chop those fresh mushroom one day😳.

One fateful weekend during market day, I and my siblings drafted our plans to feast on the mushrooms once grandma had left for market.

Things worked out has planned, grandma left for market very early and we took the opportunity to quickly rushed to the farm(the farm was not far from the house) and plucked a full bag of mushrooms.

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We did a sharp preparation of what we call "pepper soup" and enjoyed ourselves. We made sure that we washed and cleaned every trace so that grandma would not know.
It worked, grandma returned from market and didn't noticed anything all.

Night came, while I and my siblings were asleep in our room, we had grandma shouting at us on how stubborn we were. I checked time and I saw that time was 1:00am.

She didn't stopped shouting, she poured us water on the bed out of anger. I got angry as well and asked her what's the reason for all these?
She said she has been summoned by the king of the community because her children defiled the law of the land. She didn't bothered to ask us whether we ate mushroom or not, she was so confident on what she was told.

I mellowed down and asked her how she knew, and she said it's the chief priest of the land that saw the whole thing. I became dumbfounded.

Story cut short, the following morning, she went to the king with some traditional items to appease the gods, Items like goat, yam, cowries, red oil and other things that cost her a lot. I felt for her.

All through our stay, we didn't touched mushrooms again not because we were scared of their gods but because we don't want grandma to be summoned again to pay fine or appease the gods.

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Well, this is a fictional story. But things like this happen.

In my place, we have a lot of things we are restricted from eating. I would mention them in my next Article.

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Thanks for reading

11th October 2022