The Sport of Cooking

 Last week I found myself watching coverage of the winter Olympics, a conglomeration of sports geographically and financially inaccessible to the Ghanaians I was watching with. I’ve always thought that the Olympics would be more compelling if the competitions engaged the strength and capacity for endurance that a lot of the world’s population employs in their day to day life.  Right now I’m quite fascinated with the sport of cooking.

In Ghana, cooking is a workout. Heart rates accelerate, muscle is built and sweat is induced.  I fancy myself  someone who is decently athletic and who can handle herself in the kitchen.  I am not a contender in the Ghanaian cooking Olympics.  The meals that are prepared (and perhaps preferred) within the home are starchy porridges paired with soups. Making either is not easy. Food is enjoyed in smooth textures and complex flavors that necessitate laborious, tedious, and fastidious cooking.

Grinding

Though blenders are increasingly used in kitchens around Ghana, the traditional mode of blending ingredients for soup involves using a small ceramic mortar and a wooden pestle.  The technique of wrist movement and arm pressure to efficiently and quickly grind things like peppers, garlic, tomatoes, and onions is one that is seemingly intuitive.  And yet every time I give the grinding a go, I feel like a moron.  I feel like that 5 year old me who struggled to figure out the rhythm to pumping ones legs to gain momentum on the swings.   I vigorously move my wrist in a pattern I think is mimicking the technique I so diligently observe while simultaneously reminding myself to apply muscle pressure. When I decide that my arms are too tired to continue, I decide that I’m finished.  I present my results and am faced with kind, yet placating comments about my effort.  My cooking supervisors will point out the tiny membranes of pepper or tomato skin that I have failed to incorporate into the pulse.  And they will then take over and get the job done.

Ghanaian hand takes over Jessica's epic failure at grinding peppers

Ghanaian hand takes over Jessica's second epic failure at grinding peppers and tomatoes

Pounding

Fufu (or kapala as it is known in the languages of the Upper West) is perhaps the dish that is most reliant on the pounding process. (More profound words and thoughts on the importance of fufu in Ghanaian diet found here)

Pounding of kapala takes place in large wooden mortars and long wooden pounding sticks. Pieces of boiled yam are placed in the mortar and in the beginning stage, the pounder/s gently slam the stick down onto the yam to mash it.   Once the whole pieces of yam are no longer visible, the pounder/s begin using absolute full force to slam the pounding weapons down onto the mashed yam.  This is done repeatedly, sometimes with grunting reminiscent of tennis players, until chemistry takes over.  The idea is to slam the yam until it forms a gelatinous texture.  At this point one person continues to pound and another person uses the seconds between poundings to collect and knead the yam dough while adding small amounts of water.  It’s like watching synchronized swimming.......but only if synchronized swimming was terrifying to watch for fear of hand maiming.  I do not even attempt this process for fear of hand maiming or being a hand maimer.

This is a relatively small kapala mortar-a size for a small family 

Finished kapala served in the grinding bowl so as to absorb all of the delicious remnants of garlic and pepper--can't eat out of blender can ya?

Stirring

Other staple foods such as banku or tuo zafi (made from maize flours sometimes mixed with cassava or millet flours) require extensive stirring.  These porridges are thick and made in large quantities.  They are stirred in a particular pattern until the consistency is smooth.  Stirring such vats of flour and water is like being on a rowing machine that sits over a hot fire.  I stir for about 30 seconds and then hand over the paddle like spoon to those with biceps and triceps I covet.

Harnessing the cooking pot with your toes is surely worthy of a medal in and of itself

 

Teenagers are often responsible for cooking the tuo zafi, making my lack of endurance feel even more pathetic

Stirring banku for selling at a streetside food joint

My participation in these cooking sessions, while largely observational, is a nice reminder that eating well requires commitments of time and labor that not everyone is able to provide for themselves or their families. As a grad student, I've had my fair share of boiled peanut and Miller High Life dinners* because I lack the time, energy or brain cells to prepare myself something a little more substantial in the wholesome meal realm.  Though food accessibility issues have been widely integrated into discussions on diet and health, I think there's still a lot of room to talk more about how the preparation of good food can take good time or good money.  Not everyone can afford time saving gadgets or time saving ventures such as pre-washed, pre-chopped vegetables.  Cooking from whole foods can sometimes take whole chunks of time.  And there's value to that in how our food tastes, how our children learn to cook, and how we pass on unique culinary traditions.  

*I seriously miss these dinners