#Africa Trending! ~ African Cuisine Week. Written by Dean Brown.


Happy African Cuisine Week everyone!!!

😊❤️ This week (6th of October) is a global Celebration of African Restaurant Week (ARW) in New York City, Lagos, Nigeria, Accra, Ghana, and to a lesser extent in cities like D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia.
🙂 This is a cookbook celebrating Haitian Cuisine. But It's the story behind this cookbook that makes it resonate right now. In 1804, Haiti was resettled by Africans who Kicked Napoleon's Army out of the country. They had been forced to work in French prison camps (plantations), unpaid by the French who wanted free labor to work on their island colony, exactly what was concurrently happening in the United States. After a long period of planning, the mixed groups of Africans on the island of Haiti, coming from different Ethnicities decided they were going to fight for their collective freedom.
This was an African revolution, not a Haitian revolution. The plan was to militarily bring an end to Slavery not just in Haiti, but GLOBALLY in the United States, Central America and also in Africa, shutting it DOWN permanently. They avenged the native people of the island by renaming it Ayity (Haiti) which was the indigenous peoples original name for their land. They also minted their own currency and wrote their own constitution. This is why there is so much animosity from western governments towards Haiti. Haiti was forced by France to pay 21 Billion dollars in "Reparations" to France for "making their economy go bankrupt", and forcing them to have to sell the Louisiana Purchase which afterwards became the Western United States. The Africans said HELL NO. France had to roll up on them with warships to get them to agree to pay "reparations" to them, their former enslavers . . . Let that soak in for a moment. . . Can you imagine this? It took the Haitian government all the way to the 1990s to pay off this "Debt," while simultaneously being sanctioned. All of this should have been the other way around. 
History remains silent on this, but history like this is what makes history COME ALIVE. As for the revolution by the captured Africans to regain their sovereignty, the Africans had set about Using Traditional African Spirituality, African Martial Arts and African Guerilla Military Tactics, the 1st and 2nd generation African Generals among them planned the attack, fought an insane battle for their freedom, and WON! Napoleon's army was supposedly the finest military on the planet but they were rerouted during this battle. This is why it is important to celebrate Haiti because it is the only Nation on this planet established by captured people, and because of this it has been sanctioned ever since. It's also why we celebrate it during African Restaurant Week. 

Nigerian Fish Stew and Ofada Rice
They have preserved a gold-mine of our pre-colonial African Culinary and Medicine Ways and traditions, many of the same people appearing in large numbers in New Orleans during the 17 to 1800's, until the United States closed it's borders to the human trafficking just 4 years later fearing a similar fate as Haiti. History is also silently glossing over this as well. Dishes like the beloved Jumbalaya are the rebirth of the ancient Senegalese Jollof Rice. Many culinary dishes are celebrated in this book by Author Adege Flourimond. 
If you want to know more, watch the documentary '1804' which is the story of this African revolution told by Haitians. Haiti is being honored and celebrated during African restaurant week from October 5-21, 2018. This is the largest celebration of African, and African Diaspora and West Indian cuisine and culture in the world, with over 25 restaurants being highlighted with major Media coverage in New York City. The more we popularize African Cuisine, the better. 

Big thanks to Dean and over to you!!! Do you have a great story to tell? What have you overcome and how? Are you organizing an event that you’d love to share? Have you written an article, poem or short story you would like featured? If so, please contact me with brief info via my Facebook Group Its Braap and I will get back to you.

Jaz McKenzie~ The Word Magician 


Comments

Post a Comment