Quest for the Best Jollof Rice

Parties in our country are not complete without rice, the most sold food that has become Sunday’s signature food in every home. We eat all shades of rice and it’s prepared with different recipes and styles of cooking. Compared to someone eating local food in a restaurant, eating rice in a restaurant depict how cool you are and brings you validation, the confidence to eat traditional food in public almost doesn’t exist some years ago because it shows how uncivilized you are, our image in the public is important and eating rice contribute to that cool personality we project, everything is about validation and who’s giving it, this mentality has reduced the respect for our traditional food.

Time zone and culture may be different, complexion too but we share similar culture and food. Jollof rice is a staple in our menu in Nigeria and Ghana, like many things these two countries have in common, music, lifestyle, creativity but the rivalry and quest for the best jollof rice started on the internet and for a long time now the competition is still on. Though the taste, recipe, and style of cooking are not the same, in Nigeria, party jollof rice never tastes the same as the one cooked at home even if the same ingredient is used, something about the party jollof rice that’s a mystery we cherish with all our heart and without being bias all Ghanaian jollof rice tastes different too, but like everything, the spirit of competition against ourselves have been foster since many years and we still live that way till date, unity seems to be a hard task to cook even though we want to progress in our society.

Competing with ourselves is the distraction the oppressors use to have their way to wreck what has become the havoc that’s limiting us. Different forms of interesting yabs have been created to ridicule the jollof rice of these two countries by their citizens, no winner has been awarded and there’ll never be a winner of the best jollof rice, but our unity can bring us a great win that’ll change the narrative, competition won’t bring the dream to reality, no one ever makes it higher by bringing the other person down, the typical thing of these societies is giving to flaunt power which they use to command respect. Our lives and dreams are more than the competition for the best jollof rice, joining forces to bring to reality the things we hope for in our countries should be the quest, and it’s possible, our jollof rice is a proof, it’s unexplainable, like the satisfaction we get after eating the jollof rice that gives a thrill, so will be the thrill when we together achieve greatness.

By: Faka Olodu