FOR THE LOVE OF JOLLOF RICE!! ..... by ELLA

So Jamie Oliver decided to make a "twisted version" of Jollof Rice? WHAT???!!! Hmmn!  All these international celebrity chefs tho! (Rolling my eyes) Apparently he posted his quirky recipe sometime in June which went unnoticed but furious comments began appearing on the Jamie website last week and has attracted over 4,500 comments. What he didn't know was that no one messes around with the Black man's food and goes scot free! He never esperedit! lol.

To say that he murdered our darling Jollof Rice is an understatement o. No exaggeration here. Traditionally, as we know, Jollof Rice is made with just tomatoes, pepper and spices abi?

what a normal regular Jollof Rice looks like....err...not sure of that leaf tho..lol

 But Jamie’s version included whole vegetables such as “on the vine” cherry tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and scotch bonnet. It went on to advise readers to use coriander, parsley, and a slice of lemon.

Errr....Lemon? Parsley? Huh? EXCUSE ME??!!!

JAMIE'S VERSION: THIS CAN'T BE JOLLOF RICE! NO!!!

Since i saw this a few days ago, i have been unsure what/how to feel. At first i thought it was hilarious but later i began to see the annoying side of it. I can completely relate with Africans who are protesting. MotleyMusings wrote on the issue and i agree with all she said. Why do these people feel they have a right to change anything about us eh? Sigh…They have succeeded in changing our dressing, imposed their language on us, forced us into the jet age, made us too conscious of our bodies (hence the increase in implants & liposuction) and now our food?? NO! Yes i love Jollof Rice that much. Ask Motley and she will tell you that Jollof Rice is one of the seven wonders of Africa. lol. I agree o! Especially the party Jollof Rice that has that amazing-life changing-burnt-smoky-firewood taste!

More annoying is even the way a spokesman for Jamie Oliver said: “Obviously there was no intention to offend anyone which is why the recipe printed on the Jamie Magazine website is described as 'Jamie's twist' on Jollof rice.” Eh?!! I am offended o! Twist ko! Twist ni!  Don’t they realise that this word "twist" is infuriating?  Didn't he read about how the same Jollof Rice also caused a stir last year when a big British supermarket Tesco was forced to remove its Jollof Rice recipe from its website after Twitter users branded it inauthentic? He should have known better not to mess around with our scared-sunday-wedding-owanbe-every child's favourite-Jollof rice all in the name of twisting it!

On a more serious note, the good thing that seems to have come come out of this whole incident is the fact that:

·         First, Jollof rice has become internationally famous. Even the hashtag #JOLLOFGATE has been created on twitter too. (seems hashtags are now the new means of drawing the world's attention to any problem including Jollof Rice twisting!) Now the world knows Jollof Rice and will learn to respect it!

·         Second, this has shown that food is another factor besides football that can give nearly a whole continent one voice. I was amazed to see that even my East African brethren that are not into Jollof Rice like those of us in West Africa ,Nigeria especially  (Ghana please park well! our cold war over the ownership of Jollof is still on...lol) spoke up against this so called  recipe (if we can call it that!) this shows that we are very sensitive when it comes to our food.  Some of the comments on his blog showed that some people were ready to maim him for this “ATROCITY” yes! that is how important Jollof Rice is to us!

So next time, Please, DON'T TOUCH!

ELLA...xoxo.

Image Sources- Jamie Oliver, SPB food