Food and Drink in West Africa

We were warned that the cuisine in West Africa would be “unexceptional”. We packed lots of protein bars and hoped for the best. They were right, but the countries are so poor you feel grateful for whatever you’re served.

: Carrying water for her family. We saw a lot of Psalm 23 in dire living conditions. Both clean water and plumbing are scarce.

: This girl let me try to balance her bowl of water bags on my head. She does it effortlessly. I struggled through 3 seconds without my hands.

: Beef hide (leather) sold to chew on, or for soup. Protein is so scarce here.

: A mountain of yams. Root vegetables are common. Green vegetables are not.

: Best dried fish you ever tasted, according to the proprietor.

: Dawn at the marina, when the fish makes its way to market.

: When buying bananas here, be sure to check that they don’t come with resident tarantulas.

: Cacao is Ghana’s chief agricultural export. All the good stuff is exported – we never had chocolate once here!

: Cacao beans drying in the sun attracted a little green chocolate fan.

: Calabash are the perfectly round gourds used for instruments and bowls. As Jimmy Durante would say, “Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are”.

: Tiny Ghana is the eight largest palm oil producer in the world. Most everything is cooked in palm oil here.

: The palm oil production we saw was backbreaking work. Investments for modernizing production plants are in the works.

: This little guy proudly showed me his process for boiling shrimp.

: Fufu is made from pounded cassava, which has double the calories and carbs of sweet potatoes. It’s a gut filler, eaten with the fingers. We had some with goat meat gravy.