It's a little late, but here you go....FOOD

I think since the semester's winding down and I don't have any more trips planned out anymore (I was going to go to Mole national park, but that fell through), I might just write some top tens for y'all. Starting with what I should have done a long time ago, which is the food in Ghana. Here we go.

Favorite foods. (In no particular order of preference).

Fufu and chicken with light soup

1. Fufu. This has to be first. Because it's so popular here and as so many people have told me, you can't say you've been to Ghana without having tried Fufu. It's really good! Though it doesn't sound as appetizing as it actually is. It's a ball of pounded cassava and plantain, and tastes kind of bland by itself, but it's meant to be served with either light soup (tomato-based with either fish, chicken, goat, or bush meat) or groundnut soup (peanut based soup with fish). Personally, I prefer light soup with goat or chicken. I don't like groundnut soup unless it's made without the fish. Also, another thing about fufu is you can't use utensils. I mean you can, but you wouldn't want to be caught dead trying to eat fufu with a fork or spoon. (Although I realize there is a spoon in the picture of the fufu...that's for when you've finished the fufu and are drinking the soup.) Everyone eats it with their hands. It can get messy, but it really is the best way to eat it!

Jollof with spaghetti, egg, and
sausage

2. Jollof rice. I ate this all the time when I first got here because I loved it so much. It's still really good, but I think I got all jollof'ed out after a while. But jollof rice is just this kind of spicy tomato-ey rice that's often served with chicken. You can mostly get it at these things called "chop bars" where they have giant bowls of rice and spaghetti and salad and stuff, and you ask for maybe 50 pesawas worth of rice, 30 pesawas worth of spaghetti, etc. And maybe a hard boiled egg and a sausage or piece of chicken. It's a cheap meal, and really good.

3. Fried rice. Self-explanatory. It's just normal fried rice with vegetables like you'd get at a chinese restaurant at home, but it's really really good here.

4. Egg sandwiches. Fried egg with vegetables on bread. I don't know why it's sooo good, but it is.

5. Meat Pies. I NEED to learn how to make these. I basically just eat it for the crust, because it's like the best crust I've ever had on anything. It's like a little semi-circular pie crust filled with a little bit of ground beef and some onions, but the pie crust is like maybe a little eggier than normal crust I've had...? I can't really figure out what makes it so good, but like I said, I'm going to find out, because I can't live without these things.

6. Fan Ice. I described these in the last post I wrote. It's like soft-serve vanilla ice cream in a bag. Fan-choco and fan-yogo are really good too. There are these men in blue shirts that walk around with carts and a little bike horn selling these things along with meat pies and spring rolls and I'm usually always listening for that little horn on really hot days. They're amazing. I need to write a letter to the fan-milk company telling them to export to the US because I don't understand why we don't have these at home.

7. Dough balls. These have some sort of Ghanaian name, but I can't figure out what it is. It sounds something like bowl-fruit, but I know that's not right. Anyway, it's literally just like a big ball of sweet, fried dough. And it's like the best breakfast ever. Though I'm sure they're terrible for you. But a lot of food here is terrible for you.

8. Hard boiled eggs with pepper. Women just sell these on the street everywhere. You buy an egg, and they peel the shell off and cut it in half and then spread this really spicy red pepper and onion spread in the middle and then you eat it just like that. It makes my nose run from how spicy it is, but it's so tasty.

9. Golden tree chocolate. Also mentioned in a previous post, but has to be mentioned again. It's not like typical chocolate in the US. I actually didn't like it at first because I bought the milk chocolate kind and expected it to taste like chocolate I was used to, but it's made with less sugar and more cocoa. I still don't really like the milk chocolate they make, but I LOVE the dark chocolate and lemon and orange chocolate. And of course, the chocolate spread.

10. Anything from Maame Louise. This woman makes my favorite food I've eaten here so far. She makes groundnut soup, but a vegetarian version that's really tasty, and vegetable sauce, rice, mashed potatoes, boiled yams, and she even makes muffins and cookies, and sometimes mango or pineapple bread. I get her food for dinner all the time. It's incredible.


Least Favorite Foods


1. Kenkey. Kind of like fufu, but made with maize instead, and it's fermented and really sour. Most Ghanaians, when you tell them you don't like Kenkey, tell you that you just haven't tried good Kenkey yet, but I don't see how there can be all that much variation...I just think they've all been eating it pretty much since birth, and are just very used to it. I haven't met a single foreigner who actually enjoys it.

2. Banku. I have no idea what it's made with, but to me it looks and tastes exactly like Kenkey. Maybe a tad less sour, but not much.

3. Fish. For some reason, I have disliked every type of fish I've tried since being in Ghana. I'm not a huge fish person to begin with, and the fish here just usually smells and tastes extra fishy. I usually avoid it.

4. Plaintains. I may be the only person on my entire program and maybe in all of Ghana who just can't stand plantains. I actually think they're fine when they're raw because they just taste like bananas, but I can't stand fried plantains. They're just really heavy and starchy and too sweet and sticky for me, but everyone else seems to love them.

5. Waakye. It's some odd combination of mashed beans and rice that I just don't care for all that much.

6. Shito. Fish sauce. (See #3.)

And I'm going to stop there because I can't think of anything else I really don't like. For the most part the food here took a lot of getting used to in the beginning, but I've learned to really like it over the course of the semester! So there you have it. What I have and haven't really been eating over the past 3 and a half months.