Eating with your hands for dummies

Food

Let it be known that I love food. At least I love food that I love, which I am aware is as useful as it is informative. Bearing this in mind a trip to Africa, and possibly beyond, held for me a particular thrill in the promise of foreign savory dishes and exotic culinary delights. I remember thinking that, what can only be described as living in Ghana (at least for a short while), would provide the opportunity to become well acquainted with new and exciting local cooking. And acquainted we have become.

Japanese sushi - I crave, Chinese noodles - I hunger for, Indian - I delight in, Korean BBQ I have defeated; all of these cuisines (and many others) I have conquered with the care of a gourmet and the appetite of a gourmand. To Ghana I say, "touche" and respectfully bow out of the ring.

To say that Ghanaian cooking, and more importantly Ghanaian eating etiquette, is strange and foreign to me would be at least a slight understatement. Suffice it to say that living in this indomitable heat without electricity or the certainty of running water finds Anne and me dreaming, both day and night, not of air conditioned luxury, but of egg salad sandwiches (with crispy lettuce of course), pink lemonade, and chicken wings. Our meals instead consist of a variety of dishes that are made, predominately, from the pounding and mushing of a variety of bland root plants. The results are foufou, banku, and at least 2 or 3 other dishes that have sounds in the pronunciation not found in the English language (ie. I have no idea how to write them down), all of which are served in a large communal bowl and accompanied by, either on top or aside for dipping, a stew-like soup of meat broth and herbs, the favorite of the locals being a sloppy fish dish (the resulting stew is sloppy, I'm not sure what a sloppy fish is). The meal is then eaten with your hand, mind you the right hand only - most likely a tribute to times when the left hand was strictly regulated for other purposes, but now merely represents a taboo. The design is to take a small amount of the dish in question, approx. 1/4 of a handful, and roll it into a ball (anyway you can) and then dip it into the soup and slurp it noisily from your fingers. The important skill to remember, especially when dealing with foufou (as told to us by our hosts), is not to chew but to swallow whole whatever you put in your mouth. This can be seen in some ways as a godsend as the taste is lacking and chewing foufou would be an act of futility as it has the consistency of somewhat congealed fat, yum!

This somewhat colourful introduction to Ghanaian cooking complete, it is important to note that not everything we're served is a pile of communal goop and is often palatable. Everyday we are served 3 square meals from our somewhat indifferent cook Florence. Breakfast consists of oatmeal of varying consistencies, an omelette made with the local miracle plant moringa, and bread that tastes as though it was made with sugar rather than flour. If you so wish you can also 'butter' your bread with Blue Band 70% fat spread, which will invariably have a few dead ants in it that somehow bested its seal. Lunch can be one of the aforementioned Ghanaian delights or, and to our salvation, a dish of rice or thin spaghetti mixed with a tomato relish and finished off with either papaya, bananas, or orange slices - a note on fruit in Ghana: though very fresh everything tastes just a little less juicy than the imports at home. Pesticides? Western genetic tampering? Dinner and lunch are essentially the same and either could be substituted for the other. Our favourites are the rice and pasta dishes with a little chopped up (bones and all) fried chicken or mystery meat. Throw in fried plantains and beans and you have the complete menu at Chez EDYM.

The difficulty that we have is that we are not satiated by the food and are always harbouring slight pangs of hunger. We don't think we're starving by any stretch of the imagination but our trials have lead us to believe that there is a direct correlation between feeling satisfied with a meal and the amount of chewing that was involved. This leads to our deeming dishes such as jolif of rice (rice with some spices), which would generally be described as good or at least passable, to be instead delicious and a triumph of Florence's skill.

On the lighter side we are getting much better at making the required balls of goo and yesterday both agreed that banku "wasn't actually all that bad". Coke, Fanta, FanChoco (frozen chocolate milk that you bite the corner of the bag to drink while you melt it with the warmth of your hands and the Ghanaian sun), and Sri Lankan shortbread, though only available when we travel into a town, are a constant saving grace. There was a disagreeable incident with Digestive Biscuits and an invading ant colony that will always remain a sore spot.

I still love food, maybe even moreso. However, what began as an anticipated joyful culinary adventure has metamorphosed into a stoic resolve to weather the next few months and hold fast to the constant dream and hope that we will again see the Golden Arches on the horizon.

- Sam