Meals at Nancy and Siapha’s home in Accra are relatively normal for me, although I’ve probably eaten more rice in the past three months here than I have in the past year at home. Before I came to Ghana I wasn’t quite sure what my diet would be like, but was eager to try as many new dishes and foods as I could. And that’s what I’ve done (my time in Kuwani eating typical Northern Ghanaian meals was particularly helpful in achieving this goal). No matter how intimidating or unappetizing the food looks, or even if I have no idea what it’s made of, who cares? I figure a bite won’t kill me. Which has proven true thus far…here’s some thoughts on the tasty (and not-so-tasty) food I’ve eaten in Ghana.

Around Accra

There is street food of all kinds available everywhere, cheap little snacks to be bought through car windows at crowded intersections. Roasted plantains are hardened on the outside but warm and dense all the way through and absolutely delicious, and the amount of smoky popcorn, either sugared or salted, you can get for 50 pesewas (about $0.11 US) is ridiculous. I bravely tried a dried oyster kebab but couldn’t manage to choke down more than one overwhelmingly fishy bite, and was thus wary of the local octopus offered to me immediately afterwards. But I had a taste anyways and was pleasantly surprised; it was lightly breaded and fried, and served with a red pepper sauce that left my lips burning for twenty minutes but I ate all my tentacles happily. The donuts are heavenly: fist-sized balls of warm, rich dough that’s just sweet enough to be a considered a treat. Throughout my stays at various motels and lunches on the street, I’ve found that jollof chicken is always a safe bet so long as the dollop of insanely hot pepper is avoided: a heaping of spiced rice with roasted chicken and a mayonnaise and ketchup topped salad to mix in. Beans are served only in the daytime; red red with its fried plantain alongside a sort of bean stew, and waakye, a delicious mix of beans, rice, and spicy shredded meat (even better with diced avocado pear).

In Kuwani

It was in Kuwani where my cuisine adventures really began. Breakfasts were either cups brimming with hot and bitter korkor (thankfully much improved with the addition of sugar that we picked all the ants out of), or my personal favorite, steaming bowls of wasawasa. It’s texture is amazing; small little brown balls of yam speckled with just the right amount of red pepper and fresh cut onion…I’ve found myself craving a nice big serving since I’ve been back in Accra, yet unfortunately nobody here has even heard of it. We ate sakorla (more commonly known as fufu) every day, cassava flour thickened with water over the fire and pounded into a gooey glob with a watery fish soup splashed over it. To eat, you tear a starchy chunk off the mound and dunk it around in the sauce in the bottom of the bowl, using two fingers as a upside down spoon to slide it in your mouth. The first few times the overpowering taste of the whole dried fish definitely got to me, but I learned to avoid the chunks of flesh and bones and scales floating around and surprisingly enjoyed the dish by the end of my stay. Similar to fufu but much more fun to eat is TZ, its starchy ball more textured (millet or maize rather than cassava I believe) and the soup made with kisajul leaves. The same eating method is used here, but due to the incredibly slimy nature of wet kisajul, you must twist your wrist over and over in an effort to wind up the slippery strings (fun fact: kisajul is used to assist with difficult childbirth…that’s how slimy it is). I had a lot of fun eating this one with the kids. The bland starch of boiled yam chunks pairs nicely with a salty and flavorful red stew (avoiding the fish of course), and grated cassava flakes called garri sprinkled on beans with a hard-boiled egg makes for a nice protein packed lunch. Of course, there were tons of soya dishes for me to sample, all of which I greatly enjoyed both making and eating. Hunks of fresh tofu are fried and marinated in a watery tomato paste with crushed ginger and garlic, then alternated with onion chunks on a stick to make nutritious kebabs. No part of any food or animal is ever wasted; the soya paste left over from tofu is again mixed with water and dropped into hot oil to make kursei, a sort of soya donut. Tubani is similar to kursei but boiled instead of fried, and apelapelwunsa a thick sludge of soya and pepper and fish. All of these dishes were HUGE by the way, not once could I finish a complete meal no matter how much I stuffed myself (I was a bit worried this would offend my family but they just laughed at my efforts and poked at my stomach; Naa said she’d make me fat by the time I went back home). We pan-roasted groundnuts to make ceima, which mixed with dried and roasted corn kernels is a crunchy snack. I munched on yellow bolumn berries with their tart skin countered by sweet flesh, the pale chalky matter inside dowadowa seed pods with its bonus medicinal benefits, and of course, mangos. Calabashes of ledecann or pito fill you up pretty well (if you choose the latter fermented version, be careful of how much you drink), and the vivid sorboro juice made from some unknown spice leaves your teeth sticky and stained. I never liked soy milk until I made and tasted it here, thick and sweet and warm. All of my water in the village (and I drank a LOT) came from the 500ml Voltic sachets, little plastic pouches you rip the corner off and either slurp the water out of or carefully spout into your water bottle.And there’s still more left to try. Some street food has caught my attention: a sort of drinkable yogurt infused with bits of millet (at least that’s what I understood from the hasty explanation I got), and some sort of hard biscuit made from peanuts (I think…I honestly don’t really know but they look pretty good). Of course, I don’t think I can leave Ghana without trying banku or kenkey, more Ghanaian staples relatively related to fufu I believe, at least in the sense of having a starchy ball with a type of light soup. I guess I’ll find out.