Some interesting recipes based on one of our favourite tropical food staples.
Starting with the plantain hamburger.
And then with the plantain cheesecake!
Check out the rest here!
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Snippets of an African legacy; from a colourful perspective
@PotAndPlatter – A curation of who’s cooking in the African & Caribbean food scene: Cooked up in our blog pot and served on a platter. Enjoy!
In a BBC article last week the outspoken poet Benjamin Zephaniah said that ‘multiculturalism is under attack’ because Asian and Black history is not taught properly in British schools. In a week where teachers have been accused of not being inspirational and required to take more stringent tests, Benjamin Zephaniah claims that many history teachers cannot name an early African philosopher. Having been educated in the British education system all my life, I can’t name one off the top of my head either, so I will be doing some research after writing this post!
The History Curriculum Association chief Chris McGovern, claims that parents and children from ethnic minority backgrounds prefer to learn about British history because they are tired with the depressing horror stories of oppression and abuse that surround some of the history of Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. While Benjamin Zephaniah is campaigning for Asian/African history to become part of the school curriculum, some professionals in the education system disagree with him, believing that children should only be taught the history of the society in which they live.
I think history is very important and understand that it does make sense to learn about the society in which you live but when I was at school we were not even taught about contributions of black people in Britain let alone what they did in Africa or the Caribbean, and I am sure that not only Indian children could benefit from learning about the life of Mahatma Gandhi. In the USA black history is taught in schools.
Black History Month (BHM) in the UK was initiated by Ghanaian Akyaaba Addai Sebbo. As part of this educational period, I went to Leytonstone Library, east London for a short film screening, ‘I’m an African’ by Alfred Mante of www.narrowpathfilms.co.uk.
The documentary has anecdotal tales of young British-born Africans in London. It also touches on how people of African and Caribbean descent perceive themselves and divisions between the two communities, in London especially. It’s believed that once upon a time, children of African parents were ashamed to be associated with the continent, especially with negative images of a starved and ravaged Africa often shown in the media. The film screening was well attended by an audience which was not exclusively black, and triggered a lively debate at the end.
During slavery and Africa’s colonial period Europeans had a strategy to stay on top of the game, ‘divide and rule’ (Yes, the same term that got Cambridge educated MP Diane Abbott, into hot water!):
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