My Hausa Sweet Shop

I have a sweet tooth, so I love small, sweet snacks. As a child when I stayed in Kaduna, my parents will give us a few kobos and we would buy:

Alewa: small, white and yellow crumbly sweets
Dankuwa: spicy, brown dough balls made from millet and groundnuts, not so much sweet but moorish
Aya: tiny white nuts you chew and chew
Tom Tom: minty sweets

Tom Tom Minty Sweets

Then there's Chin chin made from sweet flour-dough that's fried; thin, dark brown sticky sweets (can't remember the name) and sweet, fried coconut shavings (can't remember their name either) that also remind me of Kaduna circa 1990.

Chin Chin

But these local sweets, especially Alewa, are impossible to find in the UK, so I settled for the normal penny sweets and chocolates. Then I travelled to America and realised that British chocolates were superior to American candy by far: I'll take a Kit Kat, Bounty, Mars, Snickers, Twix and co over a Hersheys and other peanut-butter flavoured candies any day.

But it was in America I re-discovered Dankuwa, when the mother of my ex sent him a whole bag-full, and as he didn't like it (it's an acquired taste) I got to enjoy Dankuwa for weeks.

Now I'm in Northern Nigeria, I've been very disappointed not to find all these sweets easily. I thought I'd come to Abuja and be able to buy these things in abundance, but nope. It seems that the sweets of my childhood aren't easy to locate any more.

I've managed to track down Dankuwa (in Jos though) and there's also chin chin aplenty which is great, but many others, especially my favourite Alewa, is none-locatable.

I think, many times, Nigerians under-value their traditional, local foods and products and only pour money into internationally accepted snacks. Many of the above mentioned delicasies are only sold by poor children/adults who walk around carrying the products on a tray on their heads.

I'm sure the thought of selling these things in a respectable establishment has occurred to someone, but those that produce them and even those that enjoy them often don't have the capital to do this, or are uneducated so cannot begin the process of  organised commerce.

Others look down on these products as not worthy of being mass produced on a grand scale as part of the food industry for national or even international consumption.

But I would love to open a Hausa Sweet Shop which will stock all these Northern delicasies in one place, and the first branch will be in Abuja. If there was a place like that now I'd be it's most faithful customer!

UPDATE

I've since discovered a couple of supermarkets in Abuja that sell Northern sweets, like Garki Supermarket that sells delicious alkalki, a sweet made of wheat and honey, as well as savoury treats like Danbon Nama (shredded meat) and my new favourite drink Fura da Nono, which is a Fulani speciality.