Palm Oil Chop: The Journal of a White West African in Colonial Days

Palm Oil Chop: The Journal of a White West African in Colonial Days by John Allen Bull is a vivid and engaging personal narrative that blends food culture, travel writing, and firsthand colonial-era observation. Although this edition carries no printed publication date, the tone, typography, and production style strongly suggest a mid-20th-century publication. Rather than a conventional cookbook, the work is a reflective memoir in which Bull uses the emblematic West African dish “palm oil chop” as a thematic gateway into a broader account of daily life, social structures, and personal encounters in colonial West Africa.

In Palm Oil Chop: The Journal of a White West African in Colonial Days, Bull records his experiences with candor and narrative detail, offering insight into the landscapes, people, and administrative realities of the period. His journal entries describe both the routines and unpredictabilities of colonial service, weaving together commentary on local customs, Indigenous foodways, transportation, trade, and the relationships—cooperative, tense, and complex—that shaped colonial society. Bull’s observations are often grounded in the region’s culinary rhythms, with the dish itself serving as a recurring symbol of hospitality, adaptation, and cross-cultural exchange.

Collectors of African history, travel memoirs, and colonial-era primary accounts will find this undated volume particularly compelling. Palm Oil Chop: The Journal of a White West African in Colonial Days stands out as an atmospheric and culturally layered work, balancing personal anecdote and historical testimony to capture a distinct moment in West African colonial experience.