Ghanaian Food!

If this post has a negative tone, I apologize. I love lots of things about Ghana – but the food is not one of them.

I’ve converted to a semi-vegetarian in Ghana. Not because I think I will get sick from the flies I see on the meat hanging at the butcher stall in the hot sun, or because I don’t like goat meat – which is their primary source of meat here. It’s really more because I don’t like all the parts of animal that are included in your food. Intestines, chunks of fat, maybe some brain, gizzards – if it’s part of an animal, it could be in your food. It’s insulting to leave all your meat in your bowl, and sometimes all I get are chunks of fat and maybe a lower part of leg that’s only hide on bone. So I’ve learned that my safest bet is to just order food without meat.

Food here is ordered by the starch. In Canada we tend to order a dish by the name of the meat (or protein). We say "I’ll have the steak", knowing that it will come with potatoes and veggies. Food here is ordered by the starch. "I’ll take fufu" or "I’ll take rice". Then people seem to just know what sauce will come with each starch.

Various Starchy Lumps

Fufu
Made from boiled yams which are pounded using a giant wooden mortar and pestle. Ghanaians like getting white people to try pounding fufu, and every time I see it being made I’m invited to pound it. I struggle with the 30 pound pestle. I get a few pounds in and everyone gets a good laugh because I’m so obviously terrible at this (although I think my technique is improving). At my house, the family has a giant sized mortar and they will use three people to pound the fufu at once. They all get a rhythm going and it’s pretty amazing! I think fufu is my favorite ‘lump of starch’ food, but I can still eat only about half of the serving size given.
Fufu is served with light soup, which is a tomato and oil based broth with a chunk of animal. Sometimes you luck out and get a completely decent piece of goat, but usually it’s not worth the risk so I order without meat.

TZ
TZ stands for something, but I have no idea what. My family makes it for dinner every night. It’s a mixture of maize flour and cassava flour. Both flours are individually mixed with water, and then the two are mixed together and stirred with a giant wooden spoon. It’s very thick and the stirring is a full on workout (the pic is of me attempting to stir). The finished product is a firm sticky dough.
TZ is typically served with stew – at my house this is usually an okra stew with various ‘meat’.

Banku
Made from fermented maize flour (and maybe some cassava flour?). Like sour TZ. Again served with okra stew and some meat.

Kenke

A more fermented version of banku. The banku is wrapped in maize leaves and left to ferment a bit longer, then steamed. Tastes like sour banku; the flavour is similar to a strong sourdough. I’ve had kenke with pepe (a pepper sauce) and various whole small fried fish.

Other notes on food:

• Everything you buy is sold to you in a plastic bag. If I buy rice from a stall, it’s in a plastic bag. If I buy my morning porridge, it’s in a plastic bag. I bite a hole in the corner and slurp the porridge through the hole.
  
  
• I drink treated water from plastic bags. They are called ‘pure water sachets’, and again you just bite a hole in the corner and drink the water through the hole.


• Women sell various fried foods from plastic display cases that are carried on their heads.


• There are these giant Timbit things called ‘bolfru’. Tasty but super greasy and rich.

My favorite thing to have for lunch is called ‘ground nut soup’. It’s basically a soup made from peanut butter and hot peppers and is spooned over rice.

Veggies and fruits have been quite hard to come by. They can be found on Fridays, because it’s market day, but outside of Friday then they’re a bit scarce in Bole (although on my way to Bole, we stopped in a town called Kintampo where they were selling mangoes which were actually the size of my head!!).