A thick, slimy Tiv okra soup whose name means "okra on the grinding stone". Whole okra is boiled and then ground on the grinding stone (nase) together with the seasonings. No water is added, so the soup is thick and lumpy.
Fresh okra, locust beans (nune), pepper, ginger (optional), salt.
The tips and ends of the okra are removed and the pods are boiled whole. They are then moved to the grinding stone and ground, with locust beans, pepper, ginger and salt worked in as they are ground. No water is added. A blender can be used in place of the grinding stone.
Eaten with pounded yam (ruam kumen) and other kinds of ruam.
One of three distinct Tiv okra soups, and a dish that keeps the grinding stone at the centre of Tiv cooking.
The Tiv food guide tivpeople.com explains the name: atuu asha nase translates literally as "okra on the grinding stone", which describes exactly how the soup is made. It sets it beside two other okra soups. Atuu is cooked in a pot: the okra is cut up and boiled, and the seasonings are added to the pot, giving a soup slightly more watery than atuu asha nase. Gbodi is made from okra that has been dried and ground to a powder. The Tiv cooking channel MDEVAAN, which posts recipe videos on YouTube, lists fresh okro, locust beans, gbaaye pepper and optional ginger and seasoning for its version, and names a grinding stone or a blender as the tool.
The grinding stone has a long history in Tiv kitchens. Akiga Sai, writing in 1935, mentions the grinding stone called nase, and describes women grinding and pounding fried beniseed into sauces. He also classes okra among the viscous Tiv soups, as opposed to the "strong" non-viscous ones, and records that women planted okra on the yam farms during the early rains.
Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) pods are mucilaginous, which is what gives the soup its slippery texture; they should be picked young, as older pods soon turn fibrous.
Note on sources: MDEVAAN spells the name atuur sha nase; tivpeople.com and this archive use atuu.
Sources: tivpeople.com, "Tiv Food" (Internet Archive copy, 25 January 2025); MDEVAAN, "How to prepare Atuur sha Nase soup", YouTube; Akiga Sai, History of the Tiv (1935), translated by Harold M. Bergsma and Martin L. Akiga, Africa 85(4), 2015, chapters two and six; Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).
Other Foods
See the Tiv people and the Tiv language in our Nigeria Heritage Archive: the states and local government areas where Tiv communities live, neighbouring peoples, population figures and sources.