Tuesday 25 December 2012

African delicacy

Since ancient times, food has been an integral part of man's life  from the period of hunters and gatherers where man procured game and collected wild fruit to satisfy his hunger.
Undoubtedly, food has over the years contributed substantially to the development of man to our present day.Food is truly one of the basic requirement in life as promulgated by Abraham Maslow. To be exact food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body.
The Ghanaian society is a society with diverse culture consequent to that has so many local delicacies. From the northern part through the forest belt to the coastal land, there are people inhabiting the place with distinct culture which posses tasty, mouth-watering foods as part of its material culture.
 In the northern sector of the country, their favorite delicacy is tuozafi popularly known as TZ.
The picture above is a bowl of TZ

 Prepared from maize and eaten with either sauce or soup.












 Similarly in the forest belt which includes the people of Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern and some part of western region, the most favorite dishes include fufu with palmnut soup, banku with hot pepper served with either fried or dried fish, yam with palavar sauce.
 For instance, to prepare fufu, you have to get ingredients such as cassava and salt. You then boil the cassava till well cooked with the addition of a pitch of salt after which you pound the cooked cassava in a mortar with the use of a pistol.
fufu being pounded in mortar with pistol.
whilst pounding the soup may also be prepared elsewhere on the gas.












After everything is done the fufu is served in an earthenware bowl with water. The use of the hands without spoons, fork or knife distinguishes it from foreign dishes which always goes with cutlery.
fufu served in an earthenware bowl
Nothing is much more interesting than the relish with which the food is eaten. Although people claim to have reached a higher level in life, they still walk into 'chopbar' with their tuxedo just to have a bowl of fufu with either palmnut or groundnut soup.














 Travel to the Ga community in the coastal part of the country and you will be astonished to see a man walk into an obscure place just to find a plate of kenkey with hot pepper together with fried fish.

 Other foods include:
jollof rice with kebab
beans and gari with fried plantain




















 These foods undoubtedly contains all the nutritional needs you  ever find in any food. Talk of iron, vitamins and minerals carbohydrates, protein and much more.
These helps the Ghanaian man and woman to undertake his or her daily activites.
Some of these foods are also of religious and cultural importance. they are used when performing rituals during festivals. E.g of such foods include the kpeple of the Ga, Eto of the Akans. Religiously, they believe that the gods should be fed in order to receive blessings.
Economically, it provides employment, income and thereafter raise the standard of living of people such as farmers, food venders, caterers, food dietician, waiters and others
An angry man is a hungry man. This is evident in people;s attitude when they are famished.
Their behaviour towards acquaintances becomes unpleasant as they are tired, weak and somehow depressed. As Oscar Wilde said '' After a good dinner one can forgive anybody even one's own relations''.
However, the values and virtues of these delicacies have been annihilated.
Some people have abandoned their indigenous delicacies and gone for expensive foreign foods.




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