Street Food

The tiny plot of land beyond my garden wall just appeared to be open wasteland. Every now and then a herd of cows would briefly graze there and move on. A couple of months ago, the scrub was burnt bringing flames rather close to the wall. I was, therefore, rather surprised to find when I returned to Koforidua, after a few days away, that a crop of corn taller than me had appeared there. This was, if nothing else, testament to the fertile soils of Ghana’s forest belt. The cobs are almost ready to harvest. They will then be sold by street vendors, adding to the amazing variety of snack food and drinks which are available in Koforidua throughout the day. Some vendors have fixed spots others keep on the move selling their wares from bowls or glass cabinets carried on their heads. Tro tro stations are popular pitches and the vendors will drift from one tro to the next, paying particular attention to the ones about to depart.

The corn is sold in two variations and the going rate for a cob is ten pesewas. Boiled until tender, the seller will then peel back the skin so the purchaser can inspect the corn before agreeing to buy. She completes the peel and rinses it in water before handing it over. The alternative is grilled on a brazier. Plantain is also sold, grilled in chunks of different sizes and invariably accompanied by a tiny polythene bag of warm groundnuts. The coconut sellers spend their time trimming as much of the unnecessary material away from the nut with machetes before finally removing the top when a sale is made. Once you have drunk the milk you pass the shell back, the seller then cracks it open. He then either passes back the fragments, with a scoop to remove the tender white flesh or he removes the flesh himself and gives you the pieces in a bag. The orange sellers make their preparations by deeply scoring the tough skin of the oranges. This makes them much more pliable. When you buy one you just make a hole at the top of the orange and you can just suck and squeeze out the contents, making no sticky mess. Yam is sold in pieces deep fried and sometimes with grilled, smoked fish. Not fish and chips as I know them but bearing some similarities.

Drinks are usually sold in clear polythene bags, filled on the spot with tea, coffee, hot chocolate, porridge and so on and then tied up. To drink, you bite off the corner and suck out the contents with care. Ice water is sold in the same way but the safer, option ‘pure water’ is filtered and sold in sealed square plastic bags called ‘sachets’. (Ghanaians pronounce the ‘t’ in sachet. It was quite strange in Burkina Faso where the pronunciation was the more familiar French ‘t’-less version). The sachets can be bought individually or in fragile sacks.

‘Rich cake’ is a fairly dry and relatively expensive plain cake which is a cut in a variety of ways, often heart shaped. Better value are the round, doughnut like cakes, which are deep dried in oil. Very occasionally I buy these from a lady with a stall near the ministries who fries them on the spot. I would buy more, but I rarely manage to find her there.

The spot at my garden gate, other than offering bottled lager, Guinness and minerals is also home to a French speaking kebab seller. Over a barbeque made from an old car wheel, and in common with 99 % of kebab sellers all over Ghana, he grills two varieties of kebab. There is the skewer with alternating brown meat (goat or beef) and onion, which is then dipped in very hot spices. Then there is the skewer with the sliced pink sausage. The sausage is very pink indeed. The packs in Intermart say they are beef. The consistency is good, with no lumps of fat, gristle or other unidentifiable matter, but I would not like to hazard a guess as to what is actually in them.

A new addition to the spot is an egg and bread stall. Eggs fried into omelette with a little onion, tomato and maybe salad (even bits of corned beef and fish) are sold in hunks of tea bread.

An interesting combination is provided by the Fan Ice seller. These guys ply there trade from hand carts. The carts have insulated compartments for ice creams and on top of these will be a glass box with warm meat pies. I did once see a man buy something from each compartment. You can always tell if there is a Fan Ice seller in the vicinity by the distinctive sound of the horn he blows.

My favourite is cosay (sorry, I’m not sure of the spelling). It’s a burger shaped disc made from deep fried spicy bean paste. In Koforidua it is served in a long tea bread roll. My enjoyment of this certainly amuses by colleagues.

This is not an exhaustive list of Ghanaian street food. It is possibly to buy full blown meals, stews which you take home in your own bowl or pan or in a plastic bag. Some dishes come wrapped in leaves. What this does demonstrate is that, if you have the money, it is difficult to starve here.