First Published by MMM in 1953

by Sr. Patricia Kelly MMM (1925 – 2016)               Ireland/Nigeria               03.08.2024

Countless inquiries regarding our health and diet reach us regularly from loved ones at home. They never tire of asking, “What is the food like? Do you ever see a rasher? And “Can the cooks make potato-cakes?” So, I have decided to expound on the glories of palm oil chop. For us, missionaries in Calabar Province, it takes the place of the Sunday roast, and after the week’s rations of corned beef from tins, palm oil chop has the savour of better days about it.

Let’s begin at the name, as it needs some explanation. In Nigeria “to chop” is the verb “to eat”. No local cook says, “It is breakfast time or dinner time,” he just says, “It is chop time.” Palm oil is obtained from the kernels of the palm fruit, which are as plentiful here as apples are at home. This oil is one of the country’s main sources of income and traditionally it is the woman’s duty to crush the kernels and extract the oil. So much for preliminaries, now we get down to our Sunday chop.

Sunday out here is a day of rest observed with almost Jewish strictness. “No School” and “No Dispensary” – except for the urgent cases, and the babies who have a habit of arriving at unwanted hours in every country and in every climate. We plan an early siesta and hope in Providence that things will go according to schedule.

At 1.00pm the dinner table looks like the window in a confectioner’s shop. Any number, up to sixteen, small bowls or saucers, each holding a special ingredient, adorn the table. There is sliced bananas in one, pineapple in another, orange in another, ground nuts, red pepper, hard boiled eggs, coconut one dry yam, each in separate bowls, and last, but not least, the palm oil with the chicken which has been cooked in it. The novice in the country is warned by a kind neighbour to go easy with the red pepper, and each one’s soup plate – used for this menu – presents a riot of colour.

The palm oil bowl is passed last. No need to carve up the chicken as the chicken is literally mincemeat, and as one dips the ladle he hopes, like the fisherman, to bring up catch. No use to say as of old,” I want the breast, and I don’t like the drumstick.” Everyone has to be satisfied with his takings. The golden coloured palm oil and the piece of chicken is now added to one’s plate and all the ingredients are mixed. It sounds terrible, but after the first taste, one is converted to palm oil chop forever.

Let enthusiasts abroad wish to taste our Sunday dinner I shall give this warning. Without palm oil, it is a meal fit for my mother’s pet rooster, but with palm oil, it is a feast.