A quick Tiv soup of beaten eggs scrambled into a base of palm oil, pepper, salt and locust beans (nune), the same base used for nune soup. A version with vegetables is called aji a kesen ha aleefu.
Eggs, palm oil, pepper, locust beans (nune), salt, water; vegetables for the aleefu version.
Palm oil, pepper, salt, water and nune are brought to the boil in a pot. Beaten eggs are then added and scrambled in the pot, and the soup is ready.
Eaten with pounded yam or other kinds of ruam.
The Tiv food guide tivpeople.com describes aji a kesen as a soup made from eggs, very similar to nune soup because the same ingredients are used: palm oil, pepper, salt, water and nune are boiled in a pot, beaten eggs are added and scrambled, and it is ready to serve. It calls it very easy to make and very delicious. Nune soup itself, in the same guide, is made by bringing palm oil, pepper, salt and water to the boil and adding fresh locust beans, and the guide calls nune the one ingredient that every authentic Tiv soup shares. The Tiv cooking channel MDEVAAN has published a recipe video on YouTube for aji a kesen ha aleefu, described as an egg soup with vegetables, "a special one, very easy to prepare".
This archive's dictionary gives aji as the plural of iji, "egg". Chickens are among the oldest Tiv livestock: Akiga Sai, writing in 1935, records that the very first domestic animals the Tiv had were dogs, cows and chickens, long before sheep and goats were obtained from neighbouring peoples. Chicken also gives its name to the best-known Tiv dish, kyegh sha shwa.
The locust beans that flavour the soup come from the African locust bean tree, Parkia biglobosa; see the Nune entry for how they are fermented.
Note on sources: the sources found do not say which vegetable aleefu is.
Sources: tivpeople.com, "Tiv Food" (Internet Archive copy, 25 January 2025); MDEVAAN, "How to prepare Aji a kesen ha aleefu (Nigerian Tiv egg soup with vegetable)", YouTube; Akiga Sai, History of the Tiv (1935), translated by Bergsma and Akiga, Africa 85(4), 2015, chapter two.
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.