Much Ado About Fried Fried Plantain
The opening line here should read “I do not understand the obsession with plantain.”
And the headline:
Plantain is shit!
As an introduction and headline, they’d make for good rage-baiting, and the people who sell courses on content creation would be very proud of me. However, it’d be untrue, deeply so.
I understand why people fuss over plantain, but I don’t think it is for the reasons they claim to.
For starters, when I talk about plantain in this context, I mean the well-ripened and deep-fried variety that is cooked as either a dessert, standalone meal with accompaniments, or sweet part of a meal.
The one that is predominantly eaten by most parts of Africa and some parts of the Caribbean. It is called dodo in Nigeria, plantin in Jamaican Patois, platanos in Cuban Spanish.
I’ve had to make this distinction because I’ve heard people in Europe refer to bananas as plantain.
Technically, they are not wrong, as both are of the genus Musa and can be used interchangeably. It is just an uncultured thing to do that calls for heavy side-eyeing and judgement.
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Objectively, fried plantain is an amazing savory dessert at best, but I know people that’ll swear it’s the best meal in the world and call you uncultured for not agreeing.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate plantain. If anything I love a good textured one that is browner towards the edges and isn’t overly soggy. A sprinkle of salt, pepper, and some other spices is my preferred variant. It is closer to Ghanaian kelewele and is how I believe fried plantain should be; the perfect combination of sweet, salty, and spicy.
That being said, I don’t think people fight for plantain because of its greatness. I believe the aforementioned cultures and peoples affirm the plantain supremacy because of its identity marker and cultural significance,
Even though it originated in Asia, most of the cultures that have claimed the plantain dish are foundationally African. These cultures and its people have typically been colonised, subjugated, and had their history wiped out in different ways, or dangerously appropriated as we’ve seen in recent years.
There is more art from the ancient Benin Kingdom in the British Museum than there is in Benin itself. What we have always known as Italian leather for most of our lives has recently been revealed to be Nigerian leather that has undergone a massive campaign of whitewashing and disinformation. Every year, African fashion is steadily appropriated by the biggest brands in haute runways across the world that neither acknowledge its history, nor give it credence. There is a rising trend where Afrobeats, of the pop variety, has begun gaining prominence in a way that has seen major pop stars across the world from Hollywood to Asia make smash hits without the aid of the native originators.
Even jollof rice, ‘the’ jollof rice, has seen remixes from multi-ethnic chefs and food creators from across the world, again, most times without credit or reference to the originators.
Now, these examples are very nuanced and I am loath to argue their fine points, but I hope you see where I am driving to with them as validators.
The internet and social media have created a bridge that has made it easy for cultures to permeate seamlessly across the world with minimal effort from or attribution to its origin. When these exports happen intentionally, like The Korean Wave, there is usually no problem.
However, there is an understandable panic when that isn’t the case and, most importantly, when this diffusion is happening for a people who have been historically robbed and disenfranchised.
With all of these examples, fried plantain is one of the only things that still seems authentically African in its roots.
We can talk from now till tomorrow about how great plantain is, and I wouldn’t argue those merits, but I strongly believe that the fight for plantain supremacy is more a culture identifier and tie than it is a true representation of the dish’s prowess or even versatility. There are many such things besides plantain that pop up as contention in everyday conversations.
p.s: no plantains were harmed in the making of this story.
p.p.s: this also isn’t primarily intended as plantain slander, but i cannot help you if you do not see that.
