Mushrooms in Africa

The rainy season has begun, and last week I noticed a huge yellow/brown mushroom growing outside our flat at the University of Ghana. A couple of days ago I bought some lovely local mushrooms (see the picture to the right) and cooked them in a simple stew . They were a lovely, meaty texture, hardier than most of the mushrooms we get in State College, Pennsylvania, even portabellas, and with a wonderfully delicate, almost smoky flavor.

I realized that I've no idea what kind of mushrooms grow in the wild here. Or where they grow. A little checking on the internet turned up a document that lists African mushrooms by their scientific names (but with nothing about Ghana or most of western Africa, and also, their technical names didn't help me much). More excitingly, I discovered an announcement about an upcoming conference: the Second African conference on Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms, to be held in Accra November 17-21, 2008. It's being organized jointly by CSIR--Ghana's Food Research Institute, and Accra Polytechnic. Sounds like a wonderful idea, and when I see what papers are being submitted, I'll know who to go to to ask my questions. Anyone who can tell us anything about mushrooms from any part of Africa, we're interested in hearing from you.

An Ethiopian woman once told me that mushrooms are not commonly eaten in her part of the country, where they are known as "the hyena's umbrella."

African Cookbook Project: Recent Ghanaian Cookbooks

Sorry about the long silence in my postings. I've started numerous blogs but keep moving on to the next thing before I put them up: on Ghana's 2nd annual Chocolate Day (Valentine's Day) and Ghana's Chef's Association; on culinary entrepreneurs; on the manioc (cassava) project; on Ghanaian restaurants and fast foods. . . I will eventually share those thoughts but today will say something about contemporary Ghanaian cookbooks.

Besides documenting recipes and helping cooks, cookbooks are a great resource for studying social history and material culture. There's currently an explosion of authors self-publishing Ghanaian cookbooks, as well as some Ghanaian presses publishing them. This is good news for African food-lovers. It's a sign that Ghanaians are proud of their food and realize there's a need to write down recipes that are embedded in an oral tradition. There's also much experimentation and modification of traditional recipes occurring, and attempts to find short-cuts for some of the more time-consuming preparation steps. In addition, a growing awareness of the relationship of diet to health is prompting people to adjust their favorite dishes to make them more heart-friendly and healthier. Finally, Ghanaians outside of Ghana want to both re-create their beloved meals when some ingredients or cooking equipment are not available, and introduce versions of them to nonGhanaian friends. They, too, realize that there just aren't cookbooks filling this obvious need.

Each time I begin to write about the phenomenon, I hear about another book, and I'm off to find it, study it, and thus keep putting off sharing here. A good number of such books are written by Ghanaians outside of Ghana, and "launched" both in Ghana and abroad. Two of the books I'm writing about today were donated to our Africa Cookbook Project. One of the books was donated anonymously, but I'd like to publicly thank Nina Chachu for the second one, Chop & Grind.

The Best of Our Foods by Christine Boahene was first published in 2003 by Afram Publications in Accra, but this is the first time I've ever run across a copy of it. A week after I saw a few copies in the University of Ghana bookshop in Legon, they had all disappeared again. The author received her degree in Home Economics at Liverpool University College of Calder, and taught many years in the Ghana Education Service before her retirement. Her teaching background shows up in the book, with plenty of advice along with the recipes. It feels like a textbook, with a lot of nutritional and sanitation advice. I especially appreciated that she celebrates "Our Foods" (i.e., West Africa's) and also features a number of West African recipes from outside Ghana, especially from Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia and Cameroon (127 pages, black and white, with drawings).

Another textbook-type publication is Rosemary Ago Pappoe's Standardised Ghanaian Cookery Book, First Edition (published, 2007, but just launched in March 2008). It is an ambitious and welcome resource for culinary professionals. Ms. Pappoe is the Domestic Exams Co-ordinator of the Standard Trade Testing and Certification Department of the National Vocational Training Instititute in Ghana. She has put together a standardized cookbook, appropriate for schools training students in good sanitation practices, attractive presentation of foods, and healthy and efficient preparation. It is in many ways a complete course. Included are recipes for soups (14), stews and protein dishes (27), one-pot dishes (10), carbohydrate dishes (35), vegetables (5), sweets and savories (25), fresh fruits, juices and drinks (13), local drinks (4), breakfast dishes (11), and salads (14). Color illustrations throughout show sample presentations of the recipes (152 pages, colored photos). It was no surprise to me to find Barbara Baeta Bentsi-Enchill acknowledged (yes, my collaborator on the regional Ghanaian cookbook we're working on but have yet to locate a publisher for) and her company Flair Catering Services, heavily featured in the "ideal kitchen setup" section.

Enyonam Canice Kudonoo (author) and Professor Clara Opare-Obisaw (editor) are responsible for The Ghanaian Colour Cook Book (A Taste of Ghana, Volume 1), published in 2007 by SEDCO. This small book (49 pages) is the kind of book I've been searching for for a long time: an intelligent and authoritative introduction to Ghanaian cuisine. It contains 45 well-illustrated pictures of 25 classic Ghanaian recipes, along with helpful tips and notes. I hope volume 2 will follow soon. Ms. Kudonoo is a former Home Economics teacher, who, interestingly, taught at Flair Catering School (Barbara's school!). The editor teaches here at the University of Ghana (Food and Nutrition), Legon, where I'm based, and I fully intend to look her up very soon.

I've been a nonGhanaian married to a Ghanaian for over 35 years, but it was just in 2008 that I learned of the ISAG: The International Spouses Association of Ghana. In 2005 they put together and published a useful and interesting cookbook called chop & grind: Recipes by Ingenious Migrants (Adaptations from Different Locations). Its cover features a woodcutting of an asanka (a traditional clay grinding bowl) and the wooden masher that accompanies it. Chop & grind is made up of tried and true recipes from 22 individuals who are originally not from Ghana, though many of the recipes are for Ghanaian foods, and many are dishes from elsewhere, along with in ways to recreate other foods using Ghanaian ingredients (183 pages, black and white drawings, woodcuts). This community cookbook is a wonderful resource for the nonGhanaian who finds him- or her-self in Ghana. It appears to have been spear-headed by Pamela Clarkson Kwami and Celia Marshall. I really hope they, too, take on a volume 2.

Perhaps so many cookbooks were published last year because 2007 was Ghana's 50th birthday (it became the first black African country to achieve independence, in 1957). That's also when Cynthia Agbozo's Aromas from Ghana: An introduction to Ghanaian Cuisine (DaySprings Publishing, Canada) was released. Her mother was a caterer in Ghana (so by default she apprenticed in her mother's kitchen), and Cynthia is another "can-do" woman who decided to address the paucity of resources on Ghanaian cooking with her 101-page book, clearly illustrated with color photos.

I've been trying to get in touch with another Ghanaian, Charles Cann, a 2005 commnications graduate of Northwestern University, who has written Tropical Ghana Delights. I want to find out more about him, and how to get a copy of his cookbook to review. From his PR, it sounds tempting, heavy on fresh tropical fruits. He's apparently "launched" it in several countries. I was here in Ghana when he launched it in February, but didn't hear about it until after the event. He has not yet responded to any of my queries. Charles?

As for the 3 cookbooks at the bottom of this page, I'll save my comments about them for another day. I have a serious complaint for the publisher, but do not want to spoil this celebration of Ghanaian cookbook authors. Similarly, I could make a few critical observations about the above cookbooks, but that's not the point of this posting. I'm sure issues of indexes, tables of contents, organization, measurement information, copy editing, food photography, special ingredients, clarity of information, etc. will resolve themselves over time.

West African Convenience Foods and Inter-African Culinary Influences

Ghanaian Convenience foods

Since arriving in Ghana I’ve been dealing with some food challenges. The first one is getting/making fermented corn/cassava dough for banku and koko (porridge). With our minimalist kitchen in Legon and no car or household help, I’m ill-equipped to get involved in the time- and equipment-consuming tasks of preparation (e.g., soaking, then grinding the corn or cassava). It’s not a simple task of running to a market to have things ground or pick up what I need. Plus, the big supermarkets (Koala in Osu, Shoprite in Accra Mall) do not sell these types of Ghanaian foods, either. There are “instant” powdered versions on the market, but so far my husband and I have tossed out all of them we’ve tried. However, we have found shito (a special Ghanaian hot pepper sauce) and groundnut paste (peanut butter) made locally that we like.

In the U.S I use fufu powder to prepare and eat “make-do” fufu, and I make banku and kenkey from stoneground cornmeal and cornstarch, even though the dough lacks the proper flavor and texture. Here in Ghana I haven’t yet found any trusted small producers who can reliably supply me. Of course, I can eat many of these dishes in restaurants, but it would be nice to be able to prepare them at home. I’ll keep looking.

This conversation reminds me of an interesting article by Elisha P. Renne in a recent issue of American Anthropologist: “Mass Producing Food Traditions for West Africans Abroad” (Dec. 2007, Vol. 109, Issue 4, pp 616-625). It talks about how West Africans who are abroad and thus away from home turn to processed, prepared foods that use production processes that are “ideologically similar . . .but technologically very different” from traditional techniques. She illustrates with examples of palmnut concentrate, fufu powder, attiéké, and Nigerian chin-chin, It strikes me as an accurate and timely look at the diffusion of West African ingredients and culture into North American markets, with explorations of how memory, taste, and social identities interact. There are a few minor errors in the article, but it’s well worth reading.

Renne's article reminded me of an interesting paper presented by Tulasi Srinivas at the Joint 2006 Annual Meetings of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS) at Boston called “'As Mother Made It': Global Food, the Indian Family and the Construction of Cultural Utopias," which explored how a whole industry has emerged in India to reproduce the labor-intensive meals craved by well-to-do but time-strapped Indian professionals in places like the U.S. I wonder if the same thing will happen for West Africans? I think of the individual-sized portions of Indian food being sold, and think of West African portion sizes, and I wonder. . .


Shoprite and Inter-African culinary influences

There was an article a few years ago about how supermarket chains from South Africa are beginning to spread into other African nations (Weatherspoon and Reardon, “The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa: Implications for Agrifood Systems and the Rural Poor,” Development Policy Review, 2003, 21 (3): 333-355.) Recently South African-based Shoprite, the biggest retailer in Africa, has opened a store in Accra. It reminded me how increasingly countries on the continent are being influenced by the foods of other African nations. For example, for the first time in Ghana I see canned South African chakalaka salad and butter beans on the shelves, along with numerous curry and periperi seasonings. Similarly, restaurants on campus here at Legon cater to Nigerian students and visitors (like the hundreds of Nigerians who came to see the African Cup of Nations matches) by preparing some of their specialties, such as eba (from gari), iyan (pounded yam) and Nigerian-style egusi (melon-seed) stew. Also, the newly opened branch of Maquis Tante Marie at the Accra Mall provides, as does its North Labone branch, upscale West African cuisine from a variety of both Francophone and Anglophone nations.

Lunch at Elmina Beach Hotel

This week my husband and I headed to Tarkwa in the Western Region of Ghana. Driving along the palm-lined coast we passed through Elmina and Cape Coast (whose grim slave castles earn this region a place as a UN World Heritage site). Instead of Accra's Ga kenkey, we passed roadside stands selling the Fanti version. We stopped for a lovely lunch: cassava and plantain fufu with goat groundnut (peanut) soup and I chatted with Theresa Anokye, the demi-chef responsible for the soup. I was delighted to find that this restaurant regularly features a weekend buffet of traditional Ghanaian foods that moves beyond the ordinary dishes to include those less familiar (to tourists), like tatale and bambara beans or aprapransa. Ah, yes, note the Star beer, too. And my Africa Cup of Nations scarf.

Eating waakye, ripe plantain, gravy, and vegetables in Ghana

waakye.JPG
Originally uploaded by betumi

Things have already been hectic in 2008: 3 continents in as many weeks. We left Brazil Jan. 2, 2008, were in Pennsylvania for 5 days, and arrived in Ghana on Jan. 10. I still have many things to share from Brazil (such as how to make goma and how to prepare cassava/manioc filled pancakes), but right now I'm working on solving technical problems so I can upload photos and videos using my internet connection in Ghana. Today is my first try.

Last night I cooked up some waakye (pronounced "WAAchi where the "i" sounds like the "i" in "in" and made from rice and beans or black-eyed peas), fried some ripe plantain slices, made a little gravy (oil, onion, tomatoes, hot peppers, salt and tomato paste), and stir-fried some cabbage and carrots for dinner. Here's a picture to mark our new location and the foods easily accessible here.

East and West African Food and Foodways

African food historians and scholars who are based in Africa can lead lonely lives. They need contact with and support of like-minded people. We need them to share their insights and publish their findings. I recently heard from Forka Leypey Mathew, in Yaounde, Cameroon, who has studied the social history of how traditional food preparation and eating patterns have changed among several groups in Cameroon, including the Bakweri (occupants of Buea and Limbe), Mbo (occupants of Melong, Santchou, Nkongsamba and other villages), Bamum (occupants of Foumban), Wawa (occupants of Banyo), Doowaayo (occupants of Poli), Guidar (occupants of Guider) and Kotoko (occupants of Kousseri and the entire Cameroon section of the Lake Chad Basin). Matew (fleypeymathew@yahoo.fr) welcomes correspondence with others who share similar interests.

Scholars outside of Africa are also doing exciting things. In 2006, Verena Raschke completed her doctoral work cojointly at the University of Vienna in Austria and Monash University in Australia, studying traditional East African food habits and their health benefits, and has made quite a bit of information available online. She's also been actively publishing the results of her research. For example:

1. Raschke V, Cheema B. Colonization, the New World Order and the Eradication of Traditional Food Habits in East Africa: Historical Perspective on the Nutrition Transition. Public Health Nutrition, in press, 2007

2. Raschke V, Oltersdorf U, Elmadfa I, Wahlqvist M, Cheema B, Kouris-Blazos A. Investigation of the Dietary Intake and Health Status in East Africa in the 1960s: A Systematic Review of the Historic Oltersdorf Collection. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, in press, 2007

3. Raschke V, Oltersdorf U, Elmadfa I, Wahlqvist M, Cheema B, Kouris-Blazos A. Content of a novel online collection of traditional east African food habits (1930s-1960s): Data collected by the Max-Planck-Nutrition Research Unit, Bumbuli, Tanzania. Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 16:140-51, 2007

4. Raschke V, Oltersdorf U, Elmadfa I, Wahlqvist M, Cheema B, Kouris-Blazos A. The need for an online collection of traditional African food habits. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND Online), 7(1), 2007; Available at: http://www.ajfand.net/Issue-XII-files/PDFs/VERENA_2330.pdf

5. Raschke V, East African Food Habits On-line. In: Wahlqvist ML. Healthy Eating Club. Melbourne, HEC Press. Web-site: http://www.healthyeatingclub.org/Africa/; 2005

Let's continue to identify and promote those who take African cuisine and food history seriously!

Tapioca Project and Cooking Contest

This week in Rio has been filled with fantastic opportunities to get to know Teresa Corção and Margarida Nogueira and their Manioc Project. The day after arriving I had the great good fortune to attend the 3rd “tapioca cooking contest” (a light, magical cassava “pancake” cooked without oil) held as part of their work with children, especially those from the favelas:


Their project has been so enthusiastically received by the children and the schools that Teresa and Margarida now have a bigger dream: to expand “Projeto Mandioca” to other cities and states in Brazil, beginning with São Paulo. They plan to develop materials to train and equip teams of qualified volunteers to duplicate and replicate the projects on a wide scale. Already they’ve worked in 6 schools and reached at least a thousand children. These dream-makers deserve our support and encouragement. Read (in Portuguese) more about the foundation they have just established, the Instituto Maniva, to make it possible.

How does this relate to Africa? Teresa and Margarida are acting locally, but they are definitely thinking globally. They want to see the love of and respect for manioc (e.g., cassava) spread everywhere, moving beyond Brazil to Africa. After all, Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of manioc (cassava), and it was Nigerian poet Flora Nwapa who wrote the ode to cassava, Cassava Song and Rice Song. Let’s join them and dream together.


Another joy in Rio was to eat at O Navegador, Teresa’s world class restaurant (with its incredible organic salad bar ,".org") where I enjoyed a highly sophisticated version of a tapioca pancake with black sesame seeds and rock salt (and filled with bobo de camarão, a cassava puree with coconut milk, red palm oil, and shrimp, along with a little cilantro, onions, etc., and garnished with a sauce made of cherry tomato and pimenta biquinho). They also served the best pão de queijo I’ve tasted in Brazil. Now I have all these wonderful cassava recipes I hope to adapt and introduce to Ghana in January!