Fooood in Ghana!

Us Americans (or "Ucanese" as the Canadians and US students have decided to dub our united nationalities), we are very spoiled by a variety of food options from around the world. In California, especially, I believe one can find some of the most mind-blowingly delicious and diverse food ever. So it was (is) difficult to get used to living in a place where one eats rice, plantains, and fried chicken or fish or some variation of that for every meal. The first week, when ISEP provided the food for us, to ease our delicate Western tummies into the spicy swing of things, most meals looked like this:


(This was towards the end of our ISEP integration, when, after eating more friend chicken in a week than I had in my entire life, I just went without.)

Tasty, to be sure. Super inexpensive (bowl of jollof and plantains for 1 cedi, or 75 cents). But not so great everyday

After ISEP, we flocked to the bread and fruit stands, and to Henry Jr.'s egg sandwich stand (a daily stop for most international students, which he appreciates, as, aside from our business, he is simultaneously learning Spanish, French, and god knows what else from us), and making tasty little lunches like these:


Groundnut butter with bananas and a star fruit!


I added tomato and avocado and, yes, plantains (I really love them) to my egg sandwich to grab a few more food groups and delicious tastes.

Sometimes we tried to cook stuff from home, to mixed results:

Fried potatos were delicious, as was Evelyn's rice. My Thai peanut noodles (not pictured) left a bit to be desired though.


Pasta Fagioli was good, but mainly cause of the 11 cedi jar of Prego I bought.

Eventually, after venturing out on our own, we found things that we liked, loved even.

Some that reminded us of home:




And, even better, some that were completely different but still delicious:
(Apologies, these pictures aren't my own because I felt funny breaking out my camera in the places I was eating these things, and can't work out how to get the photos that I did manage to surreptitiously take with my phone onto my computer.)


Fufu! Very, very spicy. This is one of the Ghanaian dished that you eat with fingers. First you wash your right hand only in the bowl and water pitcher provided by the food stand. Then you grab a bit of the dough, roll it into a ball with your fingers, picking up as much broth as possible and maybe a bit of meat, then sort of propel it into your throat. You do not chew it, This was probably why it was so spicy for me, since I didn't know that the first time I had it.


So fufu is made by pounding plantains and either yams or cassava really quickly like this. This picture does not properly capture the danger and speed with which they do this: one person pounding with that giant wood thing, and the other sort of kneading during the millisecond between each pound. Intense.


A Ghanaian friend made banku (fermented corn dough; much like fufu dough, but different, apparently) and okra stew and Evelyn and I and it was delicious! The stew is much thicker and more interesting than fufu and easier to pick up. It's equally messy, and you still don't chew, which is weird but fun.


I also really like red red, which is sort of just a variation on the plantains and jollof rice thing - its plantains and black-eyed peas stew, which is a bit spicy and delicious, and full of protein (which I get a lot of here anyway, cause Ghanaians love to sell you fried eggs, all the time).

Fun facts about eating in Ghana:
1) You eat with your right hand only. Actually, you do everything with your right hand. Otherwise, you are gross, or disrespectful. Or both.

2) If you are eating and wanna offer some to someone else, you say to them, "You are invited." When you wanna ask someone for some of their food, you say, "Am I invited?"

3) Most food if bought from stands in the street, or maybe parts of a market that might have some chairs and a table. But then the stand is still on the street. They will put your food in a plastic bowl, if there is a table, and a plastic bag if there is not. The travel doctor says not to eat anything from a street stand, or any fruit that you don't peel or wash yourself. That is unrealistic. The best you can do is try not to buy food from women with babies (who need diaper changes a lot) and try to wash your apple before you eat it (but really, just don't buy an apple cause they are way too expensive here).

4) There is not a lot of refrigeration here. Eggs are left out, as is butter, milk, and cheese. I'm not dead yet, so it's fine.

5) Ordering food is an adventure to those new to it. For your reference, you tell them how much you want to spend on each item, unless its countable. For example, I would say, "Mepaakyew, I would like 50 pesewas fried rice, a piece of chicken, and 5- pesewas of fried yams." Yum.