By Zika Bobby
The food conversation in Africa has hit a new high as Brand Television Network (Btv), a lifestyle and entertainment television network, is set to present the African Jollof Rice Challenge.
The challenge is a continental lifestyle and entertainment taste tour and cooking contest that seeks to discover the country that cooks the best jollof rice in Africa. It is a contest in which representatives of different African countries would cook to win $5,000.
According to Felix King, executive producer of Btv, the contest will seek to decide which country cooks the best jollof rice on the continent. It was inspired by social network and street conversations across Africa, especially among West African countries, where jollof rice is most popular. This argument, he said, had grown into a very strong continental debate that has gone ahead to dominate conventional and social media spaces.
King noted that the debate sprang up from a statement credited to Lai Muhammed, Nigeria’s minister of information, who had claimed that Senegalese jollof rice was the best, and a counter-claim by Nigeria’s Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osibajo, that Nigerian jollof rice was the best. Since then, jollof rice lovers have taken to all platforms to present their perspectives on the contest.
King said: “There is no official position yet on which country cooks the best jollof rice in Africa, hence the Btv desire to unravel the mystery through this contest.
“None of the perspectives has proved convincing, despite Nigeria’s strong claim to the African cuisine. The different viewpoints on the streets have only generated more controversies and continuous placement of different points to back up individual claims,” he said.
Ororo Pattaya Otono, an executive producer with Btv, said the challenge would start with an online recipe contest, where the best contestants would be selected for the live screening and then the grand finale.
He said the programme would come to a flourishing end at the reward night, which would be used to mark the World Jollof Rice Day on August 22.
Ororo also said: “Jollof rice was born in controversy about its true origin, the best ingredients for cooking it and where the name itself originated.”
Nigeria and Ghana had, over the years, laid claim to the origins and ownership of jollof, but some historians traced its origins to Senegambia, which was ruled by the Jolof Empire. This argument about its origin has become a culturally sensitive issue between Nigerians and Ghanaians.
Whatever the arguments are, jollof rice is one of the most common dishes in West Africa consumed throughout the region, including in countries like Senegal, Gambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo, Cameroon, Mali and Ghana. The dish is mutually intelligible across the region and has spread so wide to become the best-known African dish outside the continent.
To the organisers, the challenge is more of an entertainment platform than a contest.
King described the contest as a celebration of different African music, where African rhythm meets African jollof rice.
For Ororo, jollof rice is a strong unifying factor in Africa that brings everyone together to share great moments: “Despite our differences, we have one major similarity, jollof rice. Hence the theme ‘One Africa, One Jollof Rice and Different Recipes.’
“Beyond entertainment and food values, the African Jollof Rice Challenge will serve as a platform to promote tourism, cultural exchange among African countries and overall economic growth.”