The Ghanaian Gourmet Guide for Beginners

So what are we going to eat at our Ghanaian party? And why are we eating it?

• Wherever you are in the world terroir is ultimately everything when it comes to eating and drinking – the cuisine of a region is dependent on a combination of climate, land, sea, culture and history.
• Ghana is largely tropical with a large coast line. The result is a diet with lots of fish and seafood and lots of tropical/ sub tropical plants such as plantain bananas.
• The history of the region is largely determined by trade routes ancient and modern. And the Colombian Exchange engendered by the Trans Atlantic slave trade.

Learning a New Language of love on a plate

• One of the most exciting things about eating West African food for the first time is that you get to learn a new culinary language.
• West African food is in general is rich and opulent and sexy but it makes these sexy statements in a way that we are totally unfamiliar with.
• We have westernized palates and we know how to interpret opulence and lust in terms of butter, cream, chocolate etc
• But if we are going to explore West African eating we need to learn a new language to say I love you on a plate.
• Where the French use butter and foie gras, the West Africans say I love you, I want you, I need you with coconut, palm nut, ground nuts and seafood.
• But ultimately the message is much the same and very obvious on the palate.

Ghana’s Flavour Building Blocks

• With any culture the thing to do is find the core flavour building blocks so you can understand what is going on.
• If I blind fold you and feed you Greek food you will recognize its core tastes. You will taste lemon, olive oil, oregano, garlic, lamb and say “I know its Greece.” You will be able to do the same with Thai (coconut, chili, palm sugar, coriander), Italian (tomato, basil, olive oil) etc.
• So what will you taste when I blind fold you and feed you Ghanaian cuisine?
Garlic, ginger, chili, palm oil, dried prawns, ground nuts

Key ingredients and how to use them:

PROTEINS:
• Seafood – Lots of easy to like stuffed crab type dishes but be warned both Nigeria and Ghana have a surf and turf thing going on that is unnerving for first time diners – they put a dried shrimp powder into almost everything (including their meat dishes).
• Meat is used sparingly – chicken and goat are the key meats but they are used on special occasions.

VEG:
• Sheto din relish (or as a soup base) - spicy sauce made from palm oil, dried chillies, and dried shrimp.
• Egusi – courgette seeds used ground as a seasoning paste often in fish/ seafood based soups and stews.
• Coconut -generally used as a stock for sauces and soups.
• Chili relish (shitor din) – the Ghanaian version of the sauce that is known as pili pili and peri peri across Africa contains dried shrimp, garlic, chili, ginger and palm oil.
• Okra as a thickening agent.

STARCH:
• Cassava – tuber generally eaten either fresh or dried, ground and turned into a pap called fufu.
• Black eyed peas – generally made into akara fritters with palm oil
• Plantain bananas – Bananas are thought to have arrived in Africa from Polynesia in the first century AD. Cooking bananas more starchy than sweet and must be cooked before being eaten. Ghanaians eat them in a variety of ways, boiled, fried, baked. When they are fried and marinated in chili and ginger they are called kelewele (see recipe below).
• Ground nuts – a range of such stews exist – the most famous one is hkatenkwan (see recipe below).
• Yams (not the same as a sweet potato – the term ‘yam’ as used by Americans is derived from the Quimbundu word ‘nyami’ and is because their texture is similar but they are bitter in comparison to an American yam.