All About Food

It is impossible to discuss culture with out talking about food.  We all need food to survive- it is basic to human existence.  Fortunately for us, food has become so much more than just a survival mechanism.  In fact food has a culture all of its own-from its cultivation in raw form to is preparation in the kitchen to its eventual ingestion into our bodies the specifics of these traditions reflect the environment in which they are found.  To talk about food is to talk about people and therefore insight into any society can be found by means of culinary exploration.

Like so many aspects of our daily lives the food that we eat or more specifically the decision of what to eat is taken for granted.  I find it so interesting to compare the United States with Africa in this regard.  The U.S is such a mosaic of ethnicities and cultures each with its own diet and feelings about food that making the decision of what to take for dinner can be literally overwhelming.  There is really no clear ‘American’ food culture, in my opinion, aside from cheeseburgers and apple pie, which some people would argue as a root cause in America’s perverse relationship with food.  On the other hand take a place like Ghana where you have incredibly strong social institutions built off of thousands of years of tradition it no wonder that these traditions make their way into the realm of food as well.  Ghana is not diverse at least in content of food eaten.  Even though there are nearly 50 ethnic groups each with their own ‘culture’, food is pretty uniform between them.  Actually there are only a handful of traditional dishes available in Ghana and people have been eating these with almost zero innovation for centuries.  If food has two aspects: survival and enjoyment I would have to say Ghana leans more heavily on the side of survival.  The decision of what to eat seems to be mainly based on ‘the most bang for you buck’ at least in terms of calories.  Its funny actually, most foods are barely chewed if chewed at all the point being to get calories and nutrition into your body as quickly as possible.  Starches form the base of the diet and very few ‘complex’ foods, nutritionally speaking, are consumed on a regular bases.  I’ve never craved a salad so badly before in my life.  The staple crops are yam, cassava, maize, and plantain all of which are super high in carbohydrates and not much else.  These crops are used to make about four or five different dishes that are all ridiculously similar and quite basic.  It’s basically the decision between starch and stew or starch and soup.  That’s it. 

Tradition does much more than just governing what is eaten, but guides how food is eaten as well.  Everything can be eaten with your hand just don’t make the mistake of using you left one.  I think silverware is a relatively recent western addition and it is completely acceptable to eaten everything with your fingers.  For instance, it completely normal to watch business men wearing expensive suites and ties digging into a bowl of soup with their hands or tearing the meat out of a fried piece of fish.  Water and soap are given at every table to wash before and after eating, so the practice is clean and organized.  The truth is I love eating with my hand it allows me to feel, literally, what I am eating.  Not to say that it didn’t take getting used to because it did, but once you learn and develop your own style I’ve realized that there is nothing unrefined about it.  Just like a child first uses a fork without much tact eating with your hands takes a bit of practice. 

It still blows my mind… I mean don’t people get sick of the same old food every single day?  Rice, fufu, banku, yam, kenke, beans, and that’s about it.  Of course there is small variation within each of these meals, but the basic idea is the same.  I asked my friend Omari if he ever got tired of the limited choices and he said most definitely.  I said really, well then why don’t you think people try new methods of cooking?  He said I really don’t know.  So there you have it, once again people are left wanting, but don’t seem to do anything about it.  Maybe its poverty, maybe its time, maybe its laziness, but most likely it’s a sign of the rigidity of tradition.  There are proverbs that warn against eating foods your Mother never prepared and I think they are telling examples of the mentality around food.  What ever is happening its not all-bad, obesity doesn’t seem to be a problem and Ghanaians have a very stable healthy emotional relationship with food.  Although limiting, in my opinion eating according to tradition, at least in part, is the best diet around. 

By the way, you guys should look up some of the dishes I mentioned; they’re pretty bizarre at first glance.