Food for Thought

Everywhere we go, we hear chanting: "Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!" The farther from the city, the louder the chanting. The kids chant it because we are white. The hawkers chant it because we have money. We chant it ourselves, frankly because it is about the only 'Twi' word that we can pronounce.

What is it that makes one an Obruni? For that matter, what makes one a real Ghanaian? ...food for thought. Is it simply the color of your skin or the language that you speak? Perhaps it’s as simple as the place you were born? It could be, but I think there is something more.  There is one thing I’ve found. It’s more of a rite of passage; a ceremony of sorts that is both ancient and exotic. It’s bold. It’s courageous. It’s a feat that every young warrior must endure; a skill that must be mastered.

A true Ghanain knows how to eat fufu.



Eating fufu is a skill. An art form really. One can’t simply just eat fufu. One has to prepare fufu—enjoy the process. It’s more of a social event. Fufu is very heavy. It is made from boiled and pounded starches. We mixed ours with pounded plantain and cassava.

 

 The pounding kneads the plantains and cassava into a slimy, doughy, blob that is then ready to eat. Usually you put it in the center of a bowl and then pour in soup—goat soup, fish head soup, or grass-cutter soup if you have had a good day. We had ours with rabbit soup. Pounding fufu is not easy. You must pound hard. The boys generally will pound the fufu while the mothers turn the dough. It’s elegant—an ancient culinary dance. 

With a lot of work, most of us can master the art of pounding fufu. Eating fufu is a totally different experience. This can surely separate the true Ghanains from the rest of us Obronis.

 Here’s how to eat fufu. First you must clean your hands in a washbowl that is passed around the table. Next is to plunge your hand into the bowl (there is nothing dainty about eating fufu—if the soup is not dripping from your elbows at some point during the meal, you are not doing it right.) Then you pull a sizable chuck of fufu from the dough and shape it just so. There should be a little indentation to hold the soup. Now plop the whole thing in your mouth.

There is only one rule when eating fufu, and that is no chewing! You have to swallow it. Its slimy and goes right on down if you can get it to the back of your mouth. This is always where you can find an obroni. An obruni will gag, choke, or make funny jerking movements with his neck trying to get the fufu started down the esophagus.

Ghanains also eat Banku. Sister Fife likes this much better. It is made with corn maize that has been processed and fermented. It to is served with some sort of fish or sauce. It feels a bit heavier, so you can almost chew it.

Most of the village homes/huts do not have indoor kitchens, so the cooking is done outside. Many have cooking huts out back where you can build a fire and cook out of the rain. Here is a large cook pot outside of a cooking hut. The pot is a kenkey pot. This is made again with corn, but is grainier and fermented and sored in corn husks or banana leaves. It is sold along the road by many hawkers.

In one of the priesthood lessons we talked about the Word of Wisdom. Only a true Ghanain can say they have spent the majority of a priesthood session discussing how long you could let the kenkey ferment before it is against the Word of Wisdom.

So try as we might, we are destined to stay obroni for the rest of our lives.

We truly do live in different worlds.

...Elder and Sister Fife