The Non-Food-Blog Food Blog

I know a few people who have food blogs; they write about a certain type of food they made, maybe put the recipe up, some pictures of the finished product. While I like these people, food blogs don't really appeal to me, mainly because I'm not a food person. I'm so not a foodie that there have been days where I wonder why I'm getting a migraine, then realize I haven't eaten all day and it's now 5pm.

That being said, this blog is about food. I'm not going to blog about how to make a caramel covered whatchamawhozit or whocaresallini with basil sauce, but I will talk about food. Ghanaian food, to be more specific.

I've been eating a lot of Ghanaian food since I came to Towson in March. Before anyone says something like "oh, you're doing this to feel closer to your mother" let me say that that is not the reason for my recent Ghana food consumption. It's because it's easier to come by Ghanaian food in Baltimore than in either San Jose or Oxford. You can't get Abenkwan base at the local Sainsburys and the last time I checked, Safeway did not stock shito.

In the process of looking for cheap flights to Ghana, I discovered that there is stretch of road in Northern Baltimore where there are three West African stores in less than 1/2 a mile. Two of these stores are Nigerian, so I haven't really gone to those, because everyone knows that Ghanaian food is better than Nigerian food. I have gone to All in One, the Ghanaian store, several times since being in Towson.

Having better access to ingredients, and just for my own food education, I've decided to try an make more Ghanian food while I can get it. So far, I've made Red-Red, Fufu, and several stews.
I grew up eating Ghanaian food - Red-red, Fufu, Kenke (which I actually don't like), and Garri, with palm nut soup, groundnut soup, kontombre, and other stews I can't think of at the moment.

Kontombre I made, with boiled yam

I always liked Ghanaian fare to typical US food - I didn't have pizza until I was 12 and to this day, I'm no fan of the classic mashed potatoes and gravy - it does nothing for me, and has no flavor.
Several weeks ago,I made Fufu for the first time. Real Fufu is hard to make. It involves taking boiled (West African) yams or plantain, and pounding them.

As a kid, I knew Fufu as "pounded yam". Technically, Fufu is pounded plantain, but no one seems to differenciate. According to my dad, my mother stopped liking Fufu when she was old enough to be asked to pound it, and I can see why. It's a lot of work, but I never understood why my mother would pound it for the rest of us, as she ate un-pounded boiled yams.

I (thankfully) didn't have to pound the Fufu I made, because we now live in a world with Fufu mix - not as good as the real thing, but I'm not about to start pounding yams and plantains, and don't have the large mortar and pestle needed to do that in the US.

Lauren and Affie making fufu

I've also been eating Ghanaian bread on a daily basis. I know I've mentioned this in some blog post in the past, but there's no bread like Ghana bread. The bread I get from the All in One Ghanaian grocery store is better than any bread I have had in the US. The thing is, the bread in Ghana is SO much better than the bread at All in One. I feel like the day is not complete if I don't eat Ghanaian bread and I'm already not looking forward to the day when I don't have such easy access to it.

Ghana Bread

I have grown to really like the owners/workers a the All in One Store. They always greet me so warmly and ask how my dad is doing, and how plans are going for our trip to Ghana. In Ghana, even though my family is always welcoming to me, non-family never treats me with genuine kindness, and I've always felt less Ghanaian in Ghana because of that. In this store, I feel like I'm Ghanaian, which is great. It also is this cool feeling of being in two parts of the world at the same time, like walking through the Asian grocery stores in the Bay Area - in the store you're surrounded by everything foreign, but look out the window and see America.

Ghanaian food will always be my first food of choice; I just hope that in the future it can be part of my diet a little bit more than it has been over the last 15 years.