Chop (food)

Chop can be eaten in restaurants, chop bars or as street food from vendors on the side of the road.  I choose the side of the road vendors for lunch where food comes fast, out of buckets, pre prepared, tasty and cheap.  I never have any idea what I’m eating, simply ask for the amount, say 50 pesewa and then they bung it in a bag split in a funny way to enable a very nifty and secure knot to close it but which enables very easy reopening.  It comes, as everything you buy does in this country, with its very own black rubber.  A bag within a bag. 

My experience thus far of Ghanaian food has been pretty limited however I do go to restaurants, chop bars and I have my street food when I’m not at home cooking my staple; noodles with tinned fish, on my 3 ring camping stove (who knew I was a fan of tinned sardines? Not me).  Nevertheless I have gained an absolute food favourite.  The Yam chip with shito; this is not brown, hot and disgusting but red, hot (in the chilli sense of the word) and rather yummy.  Shito makes the rather dry yam chip well worth its weight in gold, and once again so cheap. I’ve also fallen in love with Ghanaian bean stew and vegetable stew, although I am still getting my head around eating stew in such heat (in much the same way as I find wearing jeans here totally wrong). All food in Ghana is dripping with palm nut oil. It’s red and everywhere… so this coupled with the carbs is not a good combo; alongside this they don’t seem to be able to serve one carb in one meal - makes eating meals interesting.

I was invited for chop with my housemate and her colleague just round the corner from where I work for lunch at a local chop bar.  I ordered fish and yam, she ordered chicken and rice, I got chicken and yam, she got fish and rice.  ‘Waitresses’ don’t tend to write orders down, a problem clearly when needing to recount to the ‘chef’ or taking orders from more than one person.  My housemate’s Ghanaian colleague choose ground nut soup (which is ok), banku (a fermented, millet, white, starchy, gloupy ball) and ‘meat’…probably goat.  He proceeded to eat (Yes! EAT) the bones… Not sure how I resisted staring with my gob open at him chomping down on the bones…. Let’s face facts; I probably didn’t.

Banku, fufu, kenkey and TZ are all made from millet, cassava, plantain, yam or corn (not at the same time or in that order) and are all starchy, white, fermented, gloupy balls.  Women are seen making these daily on the side of the road with huge pestles and mortars, pounding them to within an inch of their lives.  Omo Tuo (rice balls) is an alternative non-fermented option. I neither like nor dislike the ones I’ve tried but I imagine they would be most disgusting if eaten alone.  I’ve only had bits drenched in soup or stew which I feel is the only way to go.  Once again, more carbs.

Zom koom is the local non alcoholic drink made from millet and ginger… very refreshing and Hananah makes it in our local shop, taken, like the water, from a bag.  I have yet to try the local alcoholic drink ‘Pito’ which is drunk out of calabashes at Pito Bars.  They have bottled local bear, ‘Star’ among others, Smirnoff Ice and bottled soft drinks called ‘minerals’, like coke and fanta etc.  The African ‘Alvaro’ mineral, (I may have mentioned it before), a malted fruit drink, is my favourite and the ‘Malt’ mineral is my least favourite… it makes me want to vomit.  I can’t describe it… it’s making me retch just thinking about it.

There is no customer service at restaurants.  It is normal to have to wait two hours for food, even if you are ordering Ghanaian food, sometimes that’s just when the first meal arrives on the table…. If there are eight of you…. Well let’s just say they are have not mastered the skill of cooking for many and having all food arriving at the same time.  Salad takes longer to prepare than hot food.  Go figure.  Most waitress are slow to walk and as grumpy as hell.  You will often order something and then 20 minutes later be told there is none left, then 10 minutes later someone else will be told something else is off the menu.  You can guarantee this will happen, so you learn to check before you order what is and isn’t on the menu… even that isn’t fool proof.  Definitely don’t go to eat at a restaurant if you are hungry or are short on time…

All local eating in Ghana is done using the left hand, bits of fufu etc are pulled off from the ball of gloup using only the left hand and dipped into the stew or soup and eaten with a bit of meat.  It is this that I experienced when I was ‘invited’ to eat out of the same bowl as Hananah.  Obviously I couldn’t say no.  The fufu was gloupy, white, fermented and starchy.  The garden egg soup was nice enough and the goat was, well… goat.  Say no more.