Ghanaian cuisine
The main dishes of Ghana are centered around starchy staple foods, accompanied by either a sauce or soup as well as a source of protein.
With the advent of globalization, cereals such as rice and wheat have been increasingly incorporated into Ghanaian cuisine notably in the form of bread.
It earns its name from the palm oil that tints the bean stew and the bright orange color of the fried, ripe plantains.
Most Ghanaian side dishes are served with a stew, soup, or mako (a spicy condiment made from raw red and green chilies, onions, and tomatoes (pepper sauce)).
Ghanaian stews and soups are quite sophisticated, with a liberal and delicate use of exotic ingredients and a wide variety of flavours, spices and textures.
Vegetables such as palm nuts, peanuts, cocoyam leaves, ayoyo, spinach, wild mushroom, okra, garden eggs (eggplant), tomatoes, and various types of pulses are the main ingredients in Ghanaian soups and stews and in the case of pulses, may double as the main protein ingredient.
They include crabs, shrimp, periwinkles, octopus, snails, grubs, duck, offal, and pig's trotters.
Spices such as thyme, garlic, onions, ginger, peppers, curry, basil, nutmeg, sumbala, Tetrapleura tetraptera (prekese) and bay leaf are delicately used to achieve the exotic and spicy flavours that characterize Ghanaian cuisine.
Other vegetable stews are made with kontomire, garden eggs, egusi (pumpkin seeds), spinach, okra, etc.
However, those engaged in manual labour and a large number of urban dwellers still eat these foods for breakfast and will usually buy them from the streets.
In large Ghanaian cities, working-class people would often take fruit, tea, chocolate drinks, oats, rice porridge or cereal (locally called rice water) or kooko (fermented maize porridge), and koose/akara or maasa (beans, ripe plantain and maize meal fritters).
[citation needed] Fried sweet foods include cubed and spiced ripe plantains (kelewele) sometimes served with peanuts.
Kebabs are popular barbecue foods and can be made from beef, goat, pork, soy flour, sausages, and guinea fowl.
Aprapransa, eto (mashed yam), and atadwe milk (tiger nut juice) are other savory foods.
[27][28] In addition, Ghanaian distilleries produce alcoholic beverages from cocoa, malt, sugar cane, local medicinal herbs, and tree barks.
