Meals on (Two) Wheels: Accra Palace in Upper Clapton

Who cares where jollof rice comes from when the food is this good?

The Third World War – if ever there is another one, that is – won’t start over oil or territories. No, the next world conflict will probably kick off over the provenance of one of Africa’s most delicious and emblematic dishes: jollof rice.

The coordinates we can agree on: West Africa. We can also trace its roots back to the Senegambia region, in the ancient Wolof or Jolof (see?) empire. But that’s about it. Things get a bit murky thereafter. Senegalese, Gambians, Cameroonians, Liberians, Nigerians and Ghanaians all claim ownership of this iconic recipe.

Accra Palace on Upper Clapton Road is not interested in murkiness. Its business is food. And food – good food – is what it delivers. Over time I’ve become a regular, especially when my former favourite Ghanaian restaurant, Rebecca’s in Edmonton (Enfield), is no longer within easy reach.

The dish in question (photo by the author)

The restaurant’s location is excellent. Sandwiched between Stamford Hill’s long-established Orthodox Jewish community and an already hipster-driven, gentrified Hackney, Accra Palace adds a multicultural touch to what used to be a rather drab, drive-through area.

What I love about Accra Palace is both its service and grub. Both come with a smile. My usual fix is jollof rice, fried chicken and plantain. The rice is loose and soft. I once asked one of the staff at Accra Palace what type of rice they used and she told me that they favoured long grain rice (Thai or jasmine).

The other element that makes jollof rice such a distinctive West African staple is its spice mix. In the Ghanaian version warm spices are used most of the time. This means clove, nutmeg or cinnamon. Something else that sets Ghanaians apart from other jollof rice-consuming West African countries is their use of the same protein stock (beef or chicken, for instance) to simmer their dish.

None of the above answers the one million-dollar question: where does jollof rice come from? But as long as we have places like Accra Palace, the provenance is irrelevant. Only the food – and good food at that – matters.

A Visit to Batsford Arboretum in Gloucestershire

 

Was it a hawk, a buzzard or a kite? All I know is that it was a bird of prey

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow (photo by the blog author)

I only noticed it when we were walking towards the exit. It hovered just above us, as if to show off its aerial skills. Was it a kite, a hawk or a similar bird of prey? I don’t know. The sky was a dull grey and fascinated though I usually am by wildlife, I can’t tell a buzzard from a sparrowhawk that far.

We were at Batsford Arboretum, in Gloucestershire. Home to one of the UK’s largest private tree collections, we’d just spent a good hour walking among cherry blossoms and oak trees.

With 56 acres of wild gardens, paths and streams, the arboretum offers something to everyone. Set up as a charity, the Batsford Foundation (the body that oversees the venue’s management and maintenance) aims to promote education, conservation and research into gardens and historic landscapes.

Originally the estate belonged to Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, who had worked for the Foreign Office in Russia, Japan and China in the 1860s. A passionate lover of the oriental landscape, this was the sort of design Mitford had in mind for the arboretum.

A cedar tree (photo by the blog author)

Sadly, during the Second World War and the years that followed the grounds became wild and fell into neglect. It wasn’t until Frederick Anthony Hamilton Wills, 2^nd Lord Dulverton, succeeded the previous owner that the garden was returned to its former glory.

Once we left the arboretum I realised there was another building next to it. It was a falconry, where many birds of prey can be seen daily in free-flying demonstrations. I spotted another couple of birds up in the air with the one I’d seen before.

But hard as I tried, I still couldn’t tell them apart.