Ghana Life: Some Popular Dishes
Each country has its popular dishes that the natives eat every day and visitors are curious to try, perhaps for the first time. Ghana is no exception to this rule and despite great exposure to the world at large, the favorites of the ancestors are still the first choices of most people today. Standard international fare is available at tourist hotels, but if one is lucky enough to be invited to a Ghanaian home, every effort will be made to introduce local specialties.
In Ghana’s second city, Kumasi, one is likely to be offered the traditional Asante (Ashanti) breakfast, often referred to as “red-red” because of the color of its main components. The base of this dish is a red bean stew, which usually contains a bit of fish, and ripe plantains, cut into thin slices and fried in vegetable oil. It is usually eaten with gari, made from fermented, grated and toasted cassava. Red-red can also be offered at restaurants for lunch or dinner, usually with grilled chicken and no gari. Most visitors seem to like the red-red at first tasting, though developing a taste for gari may take a bit longer.
If a light meal is beneficial, or there is a need to economize, it will usually be at lunchtime. This is also the food that is most likely to be bought on the street. A popular combination is roasted peanuts (groundnuts) and plantain chips, with fresh plantains often substituted for plantains. In season, boiled peanuts in the shell are widely consumed. The liquid element, other than ice water, is often provided by juice extracted directly from fresh green oranges.
Bananas are an important component of the Ghanaian diet. Most of the bananas for sale today are of the commercial plantation variety that is widely sold in Western countries and is sourced primarily from the Caribbean. However, Ghana has an indigenous banana with a much more delicious and fruity taste. This banana, called asante kwadu or Ashanti banana, was the most widely available variety until the 1970s. During the 1980s, more and more bananas for sale were of the commercial variety, and in the 1990s there were times when the Ashanti banana could not be found in the market or on the roadside. However, the visitor who orders asante kwadu today still has the chance to be rewarded with a unique dining experience.
When it comes to dinner in Ghana, fufu is king. This glorious mass made up of cooked yams, plantains or cassava, subjected to lengthy pounding in a large wooden mortar, is the food that delights the palate and sustains the life of the nation. It is eaten with a hot pepper soup that may be flavored with peanuts (nkatea nkwan) or palm nuts (abe nkwan). The protein element can be meat or fish, and chicken is popular with those who can afford it. For the rest, there is always the ubiquitous large forest snail.
Foreigners often approach fufu with caution; It has an unfamiliar flavor and texture, but for those who persevere, it can become a favorite dish. The first attempts can be negotiated with minimal pepper soup and containing chicken. Peanut soup is often the flavor of choice for newcomers, and those who aren’t used to eating escargot should skip it.
Another popular food in Ghana is kenke (dokono), a fermented maize dough. This is even more of an acquired taste than fufu. It is sometimes said that it takes as long for a Westerner to like kenke as it takes for a Ghanaian to like cheese. As with cheese, there are varieties of kenke with greater or lesser intensity of flavor. For beginners, a mild kenke is made in Cape Coast, in the central region, and for experts, a stronger variety comes from Offinso, in the Ashanti region. Kenke can be eaten hot or cold with fish and salad, but as a staple it is often added to other dishes.
This brief review of popular foods in Ghana is far from complete. Ghana has many tribes and they all have their specialties. The foods mentioned are some of the most consumed in the south and center of the country by the dominant tribal group, the Akan. The determined gastronomic explorer can be left to discover the many gastronomical delights of the most remote regions.
