I have received a lot of questions about food in Ghana and figure this is the best way to answer! In short, food is flavourful and delicious. I've really enjoyed it so far and continue to do so. That being said, there are a few things that I don't like.
First, there aren't enough vegetables! As someone whose diet consists primarily on veggies, its been hard not always having green and colourful food around to eat. Now that I'm out of my village and don't have my banana and orange trees at my disposal, I've also seriously been missing fruit.
Back to what I love, which is mostly everything! I was also fortunate to learn how to make all of my favourite things in the hope I will be able to recreate this deliciousness at home (not likely...).
Basically I love plantains and anything to do with plantains, except one staple called Fufu, which is plantains pounded together with cassava. Outside of that, I love all plantains. I should specify I prefer the ripe/sweet ones to the hard, starchy one. The green, non ripe plantains are boiled and then eaten with a stew. Its like dipping bread into bread dip, basically. The sweet plantains, however are the BEST! They can be fried, eaten just on their own, or fried with lots of spices including ginger, cayenne, cloves, which is my favourite, called kelewele (pronounced killywilly).
There's another thing called Akakro, which is the same spices and sweet plantain mashed together with some corn dough and deep fried into crispy balls. Delicious!
The green plantains are also a staple in a dish called Ato. IN Ato, ripe and green plantains are mashed, more to the consistency and size of what a scrambled egg would look like - and mixed together with onions, tomatoes, hot peppers AND PEANUT BUTTER! Its basically fabulous and super filling. I'm told its fed to nursing mothers right after they've given birth because its great to assist with lactating.
I think this may be easier if I break this down into meals!
Breakfast:
There are a few different types of porridge. Corn flour or coarsely ground corn kernels are used as the base of a couple of porridges. The first is called white porridge, and its basically water mixed with ground corn, sugar and milk. The second consists of adding ginger, cayenne, and some seed I have yet to identify/been told the English name to the white porridge, which makes it a little bit grey. I once had the same thing but with millet as the base and it was the best porridge I've ever eaten.
Its also popular to get rice porridge or oats as well.
Bread and margarine are also available pretty much anywhere, but the best is when you can find bread and some peanut butter! There are also these things called boforut (pronounced: bofroot) that is basically dough just deep fried and its sooooo sweet! There's a woman around the corner from where I live who sells the BEST (what we call) boforut timbits ever!
Kind of in the same category as boforut are things called kose (kosay), which are bean biscuits in English. I haven't exactly figured out how these are made, but are my favourite thing to get for breakfast! Its this dough/bean/spice mixture deep fried...how can you go wrong?
Lunch/Dinner:
It should be noted that a lot of things are eaten interchangeably most things are eaten at either dinner or lunch and breakfast. Rice is pretty common to get and typically one can find it anywhere. Outside of just mixing rice and sauce together, a really popular dish is mixing rice with black eyed beans, which is called Waakye (pronounced: wachay) and its is easily the best thing to eat for both meals! The beans and rice are mixed with a stew that is tomato based with peppers, of course. Shito is then added and you can choose to get some cabbage/carrots or fried plantain mixed in as well. Shito is basically powdered fish mixed with garlic, salt, peppers and oil. Its terrible for you, but tastes delicious. There's a woman around the corner from my hostel who I'm certain, makes the best waakye in the country.
Similar to the corn based porridge you can find in the morning, the solid version of that is a big staple in Ghana. Its called banku. The ground corn is taken, water is added, then it ferments for a couple of days. It is then put in a big pot over the fire and stirred for a really long time until it becomes thick and smooth. There are special iron rods that are hooked on the bottom of the pot, and the person who is stirring the banku puts a foot on either iron rod to hold the pot in place. When I say that the banku was stirred, I don't want you to think that it is being stirred like one would stir soup or something, here they call it driving! It looks more like the person is paddling through the banku! The banku is then shaped into individual balls and eaten by dipping it in the stew/sauce/soup/salsa!
Banku is eaten with something called pepe (pronounced: pepay), which is made by grinding hot peppers, onions, garlic and tomatoes. Its kind of like making a really smooth salsa. It is also eaten with some different kind of soups, a ground nut soup (peanut soup), palm nut soup or okro soup. Okro is a vegetable, which tastes sort of like asparagus, but is really, really slimy when it is mashed.
Similar to the banku, there is another corn-based food called kenkey (kenkay), which is similar to banku except its a bit more firm and dry. It is normally just eaten with pepe and fish.
This is just merely a glimpse of food in Ghana and I am by no means an expert, but at least now some questions have been answered and hopefully your mouth is salivating...I know mine is.
I'm going to see if the waakye lady is out now...
No comments:
Post a Comment