Oh boy, oh boy. My food blog has been neglected and it’s crying out for any attention at all. Well, I’m tempted to post up pictures and all of another restaurant review, but I guess for now I should try my best to describe what I’ve been eating in Ghana so far, eh?
I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t been very adventurous in eating street food yet. Some of it seems perfectly fine (like rice porridge that they put into plastic bags, which is still boiling when you get to it… while perhaps not exactly the most appetizing presentation I’m sure it tastes fine, though I’d be surprised if it tasted like congee).
However, my hostess Vida Crentsil is one of the *best* cooks I have ever had the presence of coming into contact with. Her jollof rice (some kind of combination of rice with cabbage, chicken, tomatoes, and spice that is reminiscent of jambalaya) is amazing and really does kick the pants off of many rice dishes of a similar nature. Similarly, her soups and stews are amazing – they fit into them some very odd pieces of meat (I think I had beef skin or something once… I recognize the taste and thought it was liver but realized it was a little too tough to be liver) but it ends up tasting harmonious, blended into it a special African spice blend which is not bitter at all. It’s remarkable because it tastes a little like jerk spice, only it has managed to get rid of the elements of jerk spice that I don’t like at all.
The soups and stews are mostly tomato and chili-based as far as I can tell, though one of them has some green-leafed vegetable which reminds me of a combination of spinach and sui choy blended into it. While that doesn’t exactly sound all that appetizing, it’s remarkable because like saag, it manages to subside into the dish well and incorporate its vegetable elements into the character of the dish. There is also one red stew that has chopped tilapia thrown into it and boiled up, which really adds a great sea flavor to the broth; add lemon grass and cilantro and I think you’ve got a great Thai fusion dish right there.
Starch sources tend to be this jollof rice I speak of, boiled yams (no butter). They’re still slightly sweet. Though having been raised in a semi health-conscious (yes yes, I’m a bit too round to really be a great example of it) Chinese household I think I’m much better equipped to appreciate bare hints of flavor than most. In some cases roasted or boiled plantains accompany (which, while tasty, don’t seem to make much sense when accompanying a spicy, salty stew or fried chicken… yeah).
The biggest challenges I’ve had to eat so far are likely fufu and banku. In the case of both, imagine a large, shapeless lump that looks like unleavened bread (and no, it’s not like tofu) that sticks to your hands when you try to split it into pieces (though, apparently you’re supposed to eat it with your hands). Then, you take this broken off lump and place it into a stew that is given as accompaniment to give it further flavor and eat it. I’ve never had problems with eating with my hands so that’s not a problem, though in Africa I am a little more leery until I’ve had a chance to put Spectro on my hands and have it seep in a bit. However, dipping it into a red-colored stew is a bit annoying because that red color doesn’t wash out well at all. Of the two, I have to say that I like banku a whole lot more than fufu. Fufu is made from mashed cassava root and some kind of thickener called gharri, and I swear that it almost inflates in your mouth and overwhelms your senses with a very dough-like texture (it also doesn’t help that its taste is quite remniscient of warm dough with whatever sauce you put on it). Banku is made from grated maize with some kind of salty beans in the middle of the lump, to give it a bit more flavor. I don’t really care about the flavor, but because it doesn’t have the same rising-dough texture of fufu it’s already better in my eyes. It also helps that the first time I had banku, the stew was amazing in that it held a piece of fried tilapia and a blue crab. Fresh blue crab, so tasty and succulent, and the shell so soft that the only way to really eat the legs (shell and all) was no problem at all.
In thinking about it, I think I am fine with Ghanaian food and I like it. In many instances it reminds me of Indian food (the stews, in particular, remind me of curries, with their thickness and major use of turmeric and spices). However, in others, it carries notes of Chinese (the rice really does seem more Chinese in style than jambalaya, but that could just be my delusion). Finally, it carries its own purely African elements (fufu, banku, boiled plantains… very hearty and good sources of energy, very utilitarian to the region). What I am glad about, though, is that since I live in Osu, I live about ten minutes walk from the main drag which includes all manner of restaurants. I have seen pizza joints, pasta trattorias; I’ve espied more than one sushi place (though one also offers Chinese food), more than five Chinese restaurants (sorry Gab! Though, I should go eat at one to tell you if I think you can do better), an Indian restaurant, Nando’s, American food, and all sorts of others. I will have to break down and confess that for Vida’s birthday I bought her slices of cake from Frankie’s, the American food restaurant/bakery/hotel (yes, it really does close to everything), and that I have bought ice cream for myself as well. Oh well, six slices of cake from Frankie’s is still cheaper than a kilogram of nectarines at the import grocery store Koala ($17 for the cake slices… yes, highway robbery but you don’t want to know what a smaller whole cake cost; vs the lovely $18.99/kg on nectarines, and no, I’m not kidding).
What is Accra missing? Well… I haven’t seen a Starbucks, or even the golden arches. Maybe Gab, you could open up a branch of Spago. Yeah, that’s what you and Joanna should do… actually, when thinking about it, there are no pho, izakaya, Peruvian, or Singaporean restaurants. Given what I just said about Ghanaian food I have a suspicion that a Banana Leaf-esque restaurant would go over quite well – not just with tourists but also with wealthy locals in Osu.
Well, that’s about it! I am kicking myself for not having more food photos but I promise that those will come in abundance soon. Until next time!
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