Some vegetables simply weren’t made for the spotlight. Some are born wonky. A carrot takes a wrong turn underground and comes out with a limp. A tomato forgets to stay smooth. A cucumber, through no fault of its own, grows with the confidence of someone who’s never seen another cucumber.
These are not the vegetables that end up on glossy billboards. These are the ones that get quietly ignored, pushed to the back of the stall, or tossed out entirely even though they’re quietly packing both taste and nutrition.

This quiet rejection is a familiar and significant way that food waste plays out in traditional markets. As part of ‘Preventing food waste in traditional Kenyan and Nigerian markets’, a multiyear behavioral research and intervention project by the FaRM team at Busara, with support from the Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh, we looked closely at how and why edible produce gets wasted before it ever leaves the market. 

A strong insight we uncovered? Women lead in reuse, female vendors are more proactive in repurposing LVAP, selling them at a discount or using them for soup. Moreover, women who are household shoppers are more likely to buy funny-looking produce when made aware of their nutritional benefits. Bent, bumpy, slightly off-colour, it didn’t matter, as long as it did the job in the pot.

Not every vegetable has to look perfect to make a good soup. In fact, the beauty of it lies in how it values flavor over form. Which brings us, quite naturally, to Efo Riro,  a bold, richly spiced soup from the Yoruba region in Nigeria. It’s generous with its ingredients, forgiving of imperfections, and perfectly suited to giving those odd-shaped vegetables a warranted chance. So next time you’re at the market, don’t overlook the funny-looking veggies, they’re just as good, and buying them helps reduce waste. And if you’ve got a few funny-looking veggies rolling around the kitchen, this could be where they find purpose.

Emmanuel Ajibade, one of our team’s finest taste-testers, swears by it. He says it’s the kind of soup that’s always worth coming back for. So much so that we had to include the recipe. Give it a try and see what the fuss is about.

Efo Riro soup
Recipe credits: Sisi Jemimah (sisijemimah.com)
Ingredients: 2 bunches of ugwu leaves, 3 tatashe (bell peppers), 1.5 rodo (scotch bonnet chillies), 1.5 cup palm oil, 1.5 red onions, assorted meat of choice (saki, ponmo, cow leg, beef), panla (dried fish), smoked catfish, 1 tbsp iru (locust beans), 1.5 cup cooked prawns (optional), 1.5 cup smoked prawns (optional), 2 bullion cubes, 3 tbsp ground crayfish, salt to taste

Method:
1. First, get your core  ingredients ready. Efo Riro is a fast cooking dish, so you’ll need to be proactive.

2. Season the meats, add sliced onions and boil on medium heat. Remember to boil the tougher meats first, then add the softer ones. Just before it’s fully cooked, add the stockfish, boil until tender and set aside.

3. Wash your vegetables thoroughly with water to rid it of all traces of dirt, be careful not to soak in hot water for too long so as to retain the nutrients. Slice or chop according to your preference and set aside. Blend the scotch bonnets, bell peppers, and an onion coarsely and then set aside.

4. Into a large pot, add the palm oil, leave the heat on medium for 2 minutes. Add the onions, fry till fragrant. Then add the locust beans, fry to release the flavour for another minute.

5. Now add the blended pepper and bullion cubes, let that fry for 15-20 minutes thereabouts or until the pepper dries out and the size reduces by almost half.

6. Add a bit of the meat stock/ chicken stock. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes to combine, then add the assorted meats, prawns, crayfish, stockfish and catfish.Combine and taste, adjust seasoning if required. Leave to cook for a further 10 minutes.

7. Now add the washed vegetables, combine thoroughly. Switch off the heat,  leave to simmer for a further 5 minutes with the residual heat.

8. Congratulate yourself on a job well done, and enjoy your soup. 

If you’re working with food systems, interested in reducing food loss and waste in traditional markets, or even in our latest findings, we’d love to hear from you. You can write to [email protected] to learn more about our work on food loss and waste.