In Ghana, Sunday meals are more on the celebratory side. Sunday's for visiting family or friends and you could be a host or be hosted. Most guest do arrive both annouced or un-announced and you have to cater for them.
Most households in Ghana will cook a minimum of two soups for the week. The most common soups include, Light soup ( a spicy tomato based soup), Peanut butter soup, (Nkatie Kwan), Palm nut soup (Abein Kwan), Okra soup (Fetri Detchi, ladies fingers or bhindi), Tuo Zafi.
The soups above are usually cooked with Goat meat, Tuna, Chicken, Beef, Lamb, Gunea Fowl or Seafood to mention but a few.
My memory of a Sunday Lunch in Ghana, includes a walk through my neighbourhood after Church, hearing the pounding sound of Fufu ( made with un ripened plantain and cassava), the burning smell of banku ( made with a mixture of ground corn and cassava into dumplings), or the lingering smell of Jollof rice and the bubbling frying sound of chicken,meat or fish.
I walk past the lady setting up, to sell Rice balls with Peanut butter sauce to a waiting queue, shouting at her helpers to hurry up. The look of the people in her queue are that of anticipation, they will wait, no matter long it takes to have a portion of her meal. Cleverly she has their favourite chilled local beer to wash down her tasty food.
I get home only to be told I need to cook an accompaniment to my Mum's soup or sauces. Sunday's in my household was manic, everyone wanted to have my Mum's Okra soup and Ademe Detchi ( a green vegetable soup, my favourite). This is how I have earned my bicep. I make Banku for at least 10 people and cook some rice for the uninvited guest.
By 6pm, we are still hosting my favourite cousins, some people from the Church and other distant family members. My cousins and I sit to tease each other, play Ludo and generally fool around.
I hear people saying their goodbyes and by 8pm just when you are saying bye to everyone, there arrives an uninvited guest.. Arghh!
My nostalgia of a Sunday in Ghana, made me cook Peanut butter soup with Fufu, invited my cousin, nieces, nephew and my husband, to have a Ghanaian Sunday lunch in London.
This story will have to continue...