A Taste of Home

One of the main formats for food here in Accra is soup that contains some floating meat, typically goat or tilapia, and a mashed up, sticky starch mixture to dip in the liquid.  The most common kinds of starches are called fufu and banku.  The soup bases include okra and palmnut and often contain ground chiles and fish for seasoning.  The other day, I tried banku with okoro (i.e. okra) soup for the first time and was surprised how much the banku reminded me in its taste and texture of the tamal, which should be familiar to any lover of Mexican cuisine.  There are some differences, to be sure.  Although the baknu contains cornmeal, it typically consists in equal parts of cornmeal and cassava.  Rather than wrapping it in a corn husk and steaming it, people here ferment it and then mix it with hot water to form it into a sticky, cohesive mass.  As a result, it sticks to your hand and doesn't crumble, and it has a distinct sour dough flavor more akin to injera than tamal.  However, the cornmeal flavor is present as well, and the way its shape conforms to the plastic bags in which it is usually served is also reminiscent of tamales.  Of all the familiar foods that I expected to find over here, this was not high on the list. 

Banku as pictured on a restaurant's advertisement

Another funny parallel between Ghanaian and Mexican cuisine is the similarity between menudo and pepper soup.  Both are heavily spiced with ground chiles and given texture by oft-neglected cuts of meat: tripe in menudo and cow's feet as well as bony chunks of goat in pepper soup.  While menudo is given an extra burst of flavor with lime juice, pepper soup is heavy on the ginger.  Their most striking similarity is that both are considered hangover cures.