Michelle Robinson
mr200810@ohio.edu
One of the most notable experiences on any trip abroad is
trying all the various types of food that are staples to the people and their
culture. Little did I know that the Ghanaian food and dining experiences we had would become some of the moments that left the biggest imprint on our trip.
I was a little worried for myself and my classmates at first
because a few of us are vegetarians or pescetarians, meaning eating fish but
not other meat. I came to Ghana knowing that I’d be willing to try all types of
food that I could, but food turned out to be more of a struggle than I’d
expected.
This willingness to try anything took me by surprise though,
seeing as on the second day of the trip THIS was my dinner. Never had I been
served an entire fish on a plate before.
Besides the obvious
distraction of scales and picking bones out of my mouth, the fish tasted great.
But Dr. Kalyango convinced me that I had to try the fish eye,
which he said was the best part. I remember Dr K telling me that the eye
would just slide down my throat like ice cream and that I would crave fish eye
for every meal. I don’t know what he was thinking though, because that slimy eye had
no resemblance whatsoever to ice cream….
Over the next few weeks we all had the opportunity to try
some special Ghanaian staple-dishes. We became very familiar with the likes of
jollof rice, waakye, red red, fried chicken, tilapia, banku, and the ever
delicious fried plantains, which were my favorite.
In fact, we began to expect (and in Josh’s case, CRAVE)
jollof for every group meal.
A video by AdomHomeCooking on how to prepare Ghanaian Jollof
Everyone was very willing to try new things, but we found
that group dinners became a little notorious for being disastrous to a degree.
Now don’t get me wrong, I loved our group dinners and found they were a great
bonding experience for all of us. But customer service in Ghana is so much
different than that in America, which became one of the biggest learning
experiences of all in terms of my ability to be patient.
Unlike what we expect in the United States, restaurants
actually do have a limited supply of food for the day. I don’t think any local
restaurant in Ghana expects a group of 20-something hungry young adults to
swarm their restaurant all at once, therefore weren’t always able to cater to
our needs and stomachs. We often joked that it took so long because the cooks had to go out and catch our fish or chicken before they prepared it for us.
Oftentimes our meals would span over several hours, with
some people being fed super early, some not getting their food for 3 hours, and some
not being fed at all. When the kitchen would run out of a certain type of food
they wouldn’t tell us until it was too late, and orders were sometimes forgotten. It was not uncommon to hear someone say "Where's my jollof and chicken?" at every meal. Although
it was frustrating, we became very good at sharing our food family-style to make sure no one
would leave hungry.
After two weeks I did get sick of eating rice and beans for every meal. Also, the Ghanaians were shocked whenever I ordered food without meat, and would try to force some protein onto my plate, much to my demise.
Even though I was glad to try new things, I’m willing to
admit that we all jumped on the chance to eat pizza whenever we could. I didn’t
realize how much I’d miss bread and cheese, or other dairy products. And even
though we may have all gotten upset stomachs from the food which led to nights with the toilet, and even though I
don’t want to eat rice and beans again for a very long time, I’m happy that
Ghana gave me the opportunity to expand my culinary diary and open my eyes to
new foods. As I reflect on the food experiences from Ghana, I leave you with this closing haiku:
The fish was fresher
The pineapple was sweeter
Jollof is spicy
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