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Ghana: 'Wasa Wasa'
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Accra Mail (Accra)
COLUMN
11 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
A. R. Harruna Attah
Do they pound fufu in The White House?
Do they eat kenkey, pepper and fried fish at No 10 Downing Street?
Would they agree to put kontomire and apim on the menu at the Champs Elysee?
Have they ever heard of apapransa in Angela Merkel's home?
Mr. Berlusconi has just taken over once more as Italian Prime Minister. I bet if you offered him tuon zaafi with dry okro soup he would puke
I could go on and on, but all the above are our culinary mainstays. I have been thinking about our newest cause célèbre - the Global Food Crisis - and how we could have allowed things to get so bad.
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Over the years many indigenous foods and culinary styles have gone extinct - deliberately so, I believe. These are foods that are nutritious and culinary styles that are sustaining. We've picked up terrible eating habits and now top on the list of many an urban Ghanaian youngster's dietary preference is "fried rice and chicken" or some kind of "Burger"! If it isn't rice based, it is wheat based! Caught between rice, wheat and corn what else should we expect?
At the risk of sounding like Dan Lartey, what we need is diversification (domestication). By that I mean picking up from where we left off, that is, growing and eating our own locally grown foods!
By the way, whatever happened to wasa wasa? I used to enjoy it very much when I was a school boy in Tamale and I understand it was made from yam - yam peelings. What of abro ni nkatie, yaka yaka, abolo...? Fantastic snacks or main dishes that are gradually disappearing from our food radar
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