The West African Social Media “Jollof Rice War”

Abstract

The West African sub-region shares some similar culinary cultural practices as many cuisines such as fufu (pounded yam or cassava served with varieties of soups), waakye (rice cooked and beans cooked together, and served with pepper sauce), and red red (cooked beans served with palm oil, gari, and fried ripe plantain) are eaten in many countries in the sub-region. However, jollof rice (rice cooked in spicy tomato sauce) is arguably the most popular and widely eaten cuisine across the sub-region and a subject of occasionally fierce online debates (“jollof wars”), particularly among Ghanaians and Nigerians over which of these nations prepares the best recipe of the cuisine. Even though the “jollof war” creates fierce competition and rivalry among these countries in the area of sports and music, this chapter argues that the jollof war is harnessing West African culinary soft power. In doing this, the chapter adopts the purposive sampling technique and content analysis approach to select and analyse the social media posts that relate to the objectives of the chapter.