No cheese! No milk! No yogurt! Oh my!
But there are some amazing papayas, bananas, and mangoes. Or so I’ve heard. Obviously, more details will follow once I’ve actually subsisted on Ghanaian food myself. In the meantime, I’ve scooped out an idea of what to expect. Meals basically consist of a starch, with a soup, sauce, or stew to embellish it. The starch can be rice, yam, maize, cassava (a root), millet, or sometimes plantain. Soups have a small amount of meat or fish, size dependent on the wealth of the family who cooked the meal, but they don’t lack for spice. Extremely hot foods are preferred, to cool and cleanse the body.
Essential etiquette: never touch food with your left hand! It’s dirty. Ghanaians eat seated around a table of communal dishes, take the starch into a ball with their right hand, and dip it into the soup. Most Ghanaians prefer to eat at home, and women are expected to know how to cook from experience (stigma on recipe books!). Eating in public is rare, and it is considered very rude to be seen eating and to not invite the onlooker to partake.
- BanKu , RedRed , Plantain & Tilapia
Popular Ghanaian food, Red Red (left) and fried plantains (right).
Ethnic groups are associated with certain staple foods: the Ga with kenkey, corn meal steamed in corn husks (like a tamale with no filling), the Asante with fufu, plantains, cassava, and yam pounded together, the Ewe with banku, fermented corn meal, and the northern groups with tuo zaafi, a thick porridge ball made from millet or corn flour and served with okra stew. Jollof rice is a popular one-pan rice and tomatoes dish, and red red and waakye are bean dishes often served with rice. Groundnuts (peanuts), okra, and greens are commonly added to stews. Porridge is the most common breakfast food.
Sounds fun!
And to drink? Palm wine! Coconut milk! Hibiscus tea! Ginger beer, iced kenkey, sodas, local beer… just watch out for the water.
Tapping palm wine
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