Food Blog

One reader asked me to write a little about what I’m eating here in Accra. Yes mom, they have food in Ghana, lots of it, and some of it is quite good. Its also Thanksgiving this week, so I’m told, so food is on everyone’s mind.

Ghanaian food is simple and filling. The base for most dishes is a doughy stuff made with either maze (corn) and cassava or plantain and cassava. Cassava, which I don’t think is too popular outside Africa, is a root vegetable. In West Africa, out side of large cities, you can’t go more than a few meters without running into a Cassava plant: they are everywhere. The yam and cassava is called “fofou” and the maze and cassava is called “baku.” The fofou or baku is served in a tasty soupy sauce: sometimes the soup is made with peanuts, sometimes with snails (that type is a weird green color) and often with a spicy tomato based soup. Its usually served with meat or fish. The fish is a small fried fish (although you can also get smoked fish). It’s a whole fish (or, if the fish was big, half the fish) served with the bones. I’ve gotten pretty good at filleting the fish, although it’s a pretty annoying process. Other popular meats are goat and chicken. Goat is too chewy for my taste, and it’s a real fight to get it off the bone. Crabs are also popular with some dishes, but I can never find the meat in the crab, so I end up just tearing the thing apart, which many Ghanaians find pretty amusing but does nothing to get me fed.

In any event, all the dishes look very very tasty when they’re boiling in large pots. Unfortunately for me (and most westerns), those traditional dishes are eaten with the hands, and as temping as they look in the pot, when it arrives on the table and you need to stick your hand in to eat, it loses a lot of its appeal. However, the Ghanaians love it. Elsie, the office assistant, usually joins me for lunch and gets fofou. Here is a picture of her eating fofou with goat meat. She is washing her hands before the meal:

I was told that you can get any of those soupy dishes served over rice. That’s wishful thinking. In reality, sometimes they will give you rice, sometimes not. There are also dishes that are rice based. For example, rice and its palava sauce, which is a spinach type vegetable mixed with palm oil and salted fish among other ingredients. There is also something called “gravy” which is just a spicy tomato sauce served over rice. Anything that can be served with rice can also be served with boiled yams. So here is my lunch of boiled yams, palava sauce, and a fried fish:

One dish without rice, yams, baku or fofou is called “red-red.” Its plantains and beans in some type of sauce and its really filling although it tends to be very oily. Its usually served with fried plantains, to complement the plantains in the red-red, I guess. You can also just get an order of fried plantains, but to Ghanaians that’s sort of like ordering mash potatoes and nothing else. Pretty much everything is spicy, which I like. If you don’t like spice, you’re in trouble. Also, you don’t drink water during the meal, only after.

The above dishes are available in “chop shops” and “catering services.” In Accra and other big cities, there are Indian, Chinese and Lebanese restaurants, owned by natives of those countries, respectively. At most of those places, the food is pretty good, even by New York standards. I’ve had really good Indian, Chinese and Lebanese meals. In Accra are also two or three pubs that serve burgers and other pub food, some of which is also pretty good. Those places do a brisk business serving comfort food to westerners. Outside Accra, anyone looking for Chinese food, Indian food or western food eats at a hotel’s restaurant. Sometimes the food is good, sometimes its barely edible, and, as has happened a few times, sometimes its just plain not available.

In Accra and everywhere, there is a lot of “fast food” around. I’m not talking about Taco Bell or MacDonald’s. Fast food is usually fried chicken with fried rice or jallof rice. Jallof rice is spicy fried rice with out the vegetables that are in the fried rice. The fast food always comes with small salad, topped with ketchup and mayonnaise. Its not advisable to eat the salad until you have been here for a while and are used to the various micro bodes in the water. I also can’t stand having ketchup and mayo on my salad, so I try to ask for no salad, a request which is sometimes understood, and which sometimes is interpreted as meaning I want EXTRA salad with EXTRA mayo and ketchup.

Some of the fast food places are stand alone, but most are associated with the local “spots” (bars) where you can bring your fried chicken and fried rice and eat while you drink. Every “spot” will also have a guy barbecuing meat skewers and hot dogs served on sticks, doused in chilly pepper, which, as far as I can tell, is the only cow meat around. Unfortunately, the beef skewers tend to be full of grizzle. After a few beers, no one seems to mind the grizzle, which is probably why those guys are always grilling by the local “spots.”

Booze, by the way, is in abundance around here. In fact, there are probably more bars (“spots”) in Accra than there are in New York, and people also set up mini bars on street corners, in parks, even on highway medians. If there are any regulations on serving alcohol, they are not immediately apparent. In addition to beer, the “spots” serve these god awful herbal drinks and “bitters.” Herbal drinks and bitters are the type of thing that only a hard core alcoholic or frat boy would even think about drinking. I’m not sure why, but any liquor, even the international brands, somehow taste different and leave you a little quezzy. Only at the fanciest places can you get imported stuff up to international standards—which we take for granted in New York. In terms of beer, the only recognizable brand is Guinness, which is brewed in Ghana. The big local beer brands are “Star,” “Club,” “Stone” and “Castle.” None of it is bad, but its also not very good. What it is is cheep: a large beer is usually a dollar. Amstel, Heineken and another Dutch beer called “Guilder” also have a small presence. Amstel and Heineken are very expensive, so most people stick to the local stuff and “Guilder.” People seem to drink beer at all hours—when I walk to the bus (“tro tro”) at 7:30am, there are people sitting at spots drinking a beer. Maybe I’m missing something, but beer seems like a perfectly fine breakfast drink.

Accra also has a really health club scene, with lots of drinking and a good amount of drugs. I’ve gone to three clubs: not bad places, but the music is usually really loud and there are a lot of good looking local ladies who may or may not be prostitutes. These women are aggressive, which might be a cultural thing, or might be that they are really really into white guys. I don’t know, but I’m not interested in finding out whether they are or are not prostitutes, especially because I try not to carry much cash on me, I can’t use an ATM here, and I can’t imagine that Ghanaian pimps are very pleasant people. (Yes, yes: having sex with prostitutes is also immoral and unhealthy). The one place that did not have any prostitutes was all Lebanese people and assorted foreigners; I liked it, but it felt a little strange to come all the way to West Africa to repeat an experience I could have in NYC any night of the week. There is also lots of live music, and when I can figure out where and when the events are (not an easy task) I try to go. Those shows are great and its usually free or like $1.

Back to the food: there are really no Ghanaian desserts. There are some cookies made with plantains that are really dry and taste like bad butter cookies. People eat a lot of locally made frozen yogurt and ice cream, served by boys with bikes and bells. Also, although not strictly dessert, fresh fruit is pretty abundant. Tons of women walk around the city selling fresh fruit from trays on their head. Its pretty impressive:

I forget what that lady had (it looks like she had nuts or dry fruit), but most of the “market women” have a head full of pineapples, tangerines, papaya, watermelon, bananas. (As a general rule, as long as it has skin, its ok to eat). I wish I had more pictures of market ladies with their goods on top of their heads, because it’s a pretty common sight around here. But, as you might expect, the ladies get very pissy when you take their picture, even if you pay or buy something. I refrain both out of respect and because a lot of those ladies can probably kick my ass. Another picture:

When not buying things off of women’s heads, there are a few western style supermarkets I can go to, which are pretty good. They stock brands from all over the world since there customer base is from everywhere. So the hummus is the same as you find in Beirut, the sausage is what you find in Frankfurt, the pasta sauce is from Rome and the Betty Lee cake mix is what you would find in Atlanta. There are also supermarkets that specialize in Indian and Chinese goods. Its all pretty expensive (the American products are about twice the price), and since I’m here for only 10 weeks, there is no reason for me to spend much time at those places. However, one supermarket is owned by Lebanese people, so they have awesome olives, which I enjoy.

These supermarkets are not for average Ghanaians. For the time being, most Ghanaians shop at outdoor markets. These are pretty exciting places, but I find that shopping there is not a pleasant experience. First, a lot of the stuff looks very unappetizing- how many goat legs and smoked fish do I really need? Also, there is no refrigeration for the fish or meat. (I never really thought about it, but I assume that we go to great lengths to refrigerate fish for some important reasons. Those reasons are lost on the Ghanaians, I guess). Another problem that bothers me, but no one else, is that all the vendors (food, dry goods, and clothing) have pretty much the same thing. How do you decide who to buy from? Yes, economists, I know that one of the ways to determine who to buy from is price (who ever is the lowest). But that creates another problem because to get the best price, you have to bargain. I like to bargain as much as the next guy, but bargaining over every little thing is trying. And finally, its usually hot as hell in these markets. Here is Elsie at the market (although she confided that she prefers the supermarket):

I think I’ll buy some souvenirs at the markets and some boiled peanuts, since I can’t get those at the supermarket for some reason, but I think I’ll stick to the supermarkets to the extent I need to buy any real food or cleaning supplies. However, I’m aware that the “supermarketfication” of Africa threatens to put all these market women out of business, and that is going to cause a lot of pain.

Now, a word about prices. My lunch is always $1.60 and a nickel for “pure water.” The fast food will cost you about $2, but its less out side Accra. The fruit is between 20 cents and 60 cents because the lady who carries the stuff around on her head will charge you whatever she thinks you can pay. (I know I’m being ripped off, but I don’t mind. The only thing that gets on my nerves is the “change game” where they say “no change, buy another!” How many pineapples do I need, lady?) Large beers cost a dollar, a shot of the herbal liquor (if you dare) is like 40 cents. A beef skewer is 30- 50 cents. At a chop shop or a canteen, you can eat and drink yourself into a stupor for no more than $4 dollars, and that’s high because this is Accra. The Indian, Chinese, and Lebanese restaurants and the western style pubs charge international prices. At any of those places (except some very cheap Chinese places), a meal, with a beer (or two) will cost about $12.

To put some of these prices in perspective, many professional/middle class Ghanaians make about $400 per month ($4,800 per year). I don’t know how the taxes work, so I don’t know if that is before or after taxes. Nevertheless, it’s a good salary here: the per capita GNP is $380 per year, or a little over a dollar a day. So spending $12 on a meal is extravagant. There are a few lessons from this: first, you can see why people are so interested in coming to America and Europe to work menial jobs that pay $300 a week and, conversely, why a meal and drinks at a bar in the U.S. costs $25. Second, if you’re a westerner looking to make some good money and don’t mind a few disreputable types hanging around and having to bribe a few dozen officials, pick an African capital and open a pub serving western food. It’s a gold mine, as far as I can tell. Third, despite being a New Yorker, I now regard that $6 chicken tikka masala and a $2 nan bread as an expensive treat. But hey, I’m a New Yorker who is volunteering for 10 weeks.

At one of those expat pubs (one of the gold mines) there is a weekly trivia game, and last week my team won. The prize was $30 toward our tab. The non-prize is that when you win, you have to prepare the quiz for the following week. So I have to meet with my team to come up with some questions. We each have to put together a round, I think. I had some ideas that revolved around American pop culture, but I was advised not to make it “too American” because people get pissed. So my idea is a round where you have to match up the bad guy with the film he was featured in. I know for a fact that bad guys are a literal rouges gallery of international super villains, so there is no way I can be accused of being “too American.” I’ll show them non-American!

Otherwise, last weekend I was in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city. I met a German friend who lives in the area, and we went around. It was fun, Kumasi is a nice town, but nothing to write home about (literally in this case). It’s the historic capital of the Ashanti empire, so there is lots of history. Unfortunately, the British burned the entire city down in 1874, so any structures of historical significance are long gone. There is a military museum in Kumasi but all it has are some dusty pictures and guns captured by the Ghanaian military in various campaigns, like when they served as peace keepers in Rwanda and the Congo. Also, as part of the British army, Ghanaian forces helped drive the Germans out of their African possessions during World War One, and the Italians out of Ethiopia in World War Two, so there are lots of old Italian and German guns on display. It really should be called the “museum of used guns.”

Otherwise, all is well. The World Bank is recommending an investigation of the landfill project I worked on, which is a small win for the people of the community. It also seems like the landfill part of the project was so badly bungled by the AMA and local bank people that the whole thing might be scrapped, which is a total win for the community, if it happens.

Today I went to another conference on guns. It was really interesting—these are the people who want stricter gun laws, and they have the support of the government, so a few important ministers and members of parliament showed up. Since they don’t like guns, I learned a lot about ethnic conflicts and crime in Ghana, the two things that guns exacerbate, and things that these guys really wanted to talk about for that reason. I’ll report all about it in my next blog. Finally, there is a big soccer game on Wednesday and I’m going to try to get a ticket and go. It’s the finals of an small international tournament, and Ghana is playing Benin. Hope I can get a ticket- the tickets are not sold out, but also not available. I don’t know what that means. I think I’m going to the beach again this weekend, my first time in a month. Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!