What's under your Christmas tree this year: also sankofa and gye nyame tea biscuits

What's under your holiday tree this year? Consider The Ghana Cookbook.

On another front:  I'm finally also almost (~11 tries later) there on the development of a Ghana-friendly gluten-free tea biscuit using only cassava flour, brown rice flour, tigernut flour, tapioca starch, corn starch, sugar,  salt, vanilla, ripe plantain, and coconut oil (plus a little xantham gum). Hope to share soon. Plus, I'm finalizing  3-D printing of those cookie stamps of adinkra symbols. Very excited! The rating are going up and up with my taste testers. Really getting in the holiday mood.

 

2nd, 3rd, and 4th attempts . . .little by little

As you may remember, I'm trying to develop a Ghana-style gluten-free shortbread cookie recipe.

I first tried using a couple of recipes from gluten-free friends/sites, but substituting coconut oil for the butter, and various blends of rice/millet/tapioca flours, etc. first for the main replacement of wheat flour and adding proportions of various gluten-free flours as indicated. Won't go into the specifics here, just say that the sugar didn't blend the way it does with butter, and the "tapioca flour," being tapioca starch, turned the dough either into a solid brick that I had to throw away and couldn't even roll out, or the cookies/biscuits were so gritty and crumbly they were not worth keeping.  I tried once with xantham gum and that still didn't work. Also, I was mixing the dough with a wooden spoon.

Yesterday, I tried substituting half powdered sugar for the sugar, and used a mixer, plus just cassava flour from Brazil (not the tapioca starch), and chilled the dough before rolling it out on parchment paper. This was the best yet, but according to Kwadwo, my reliable tester (and to myself, too), they still tasted gritty, and dry, and still were very fragile.

I'm going to keep experimenting and will keep you in the loop, but I'm wide open to suggestions: just remember I don't want to use things that aren't easily and cheaply available in Ghana. I'd like shortbread, because it uses only flour, sugar, butter substitute (like coconut oil--please no margarine), a little salt, and possibly a little flavoring like vanilla. If I can perfect this, I'll next try a gluten-free sugar cookie.

Snacking, Signing and Traveling updates

Recently, over 50 community women (and a few men) from all walks of life in State College, PA, came together for a women's networking event. It was sponsored by a new group largely spearheaded by Dee Frisque and called SCI (Smart, Creative and Inter-connected).

I was invited to exhibit and sign copies of The Ghana Cookbook, and brought along samples of a couple of recipes: the always popular plantain strips ("chips") and hibiscus iced tea. It was a refreshing time, and I'm always grateful for the chance to meet and network and also  promote Ghana's (and sub-Saharan Africa's) cuisine and culture. It's rewarding to see The Ghana Cookbook continuing to make its way out into the world, spreading almost entirely by word-of-mouth. Thank you to all of you who continue to share about it.

This weekend, I'm heading to Brazil for a week: first to Rio where I'll reconnect with 2 Brazilian colleagues I last spent time with several years ago: culinary professional Margarida Nogueira and Teresa Corção,President of Instituto Maniva (its motto is "food is love, culture, and memory") and chef owner of the O Navigador. They have also been very involved in supporting and developing Brazil's slow food movement. I'm excited to talk specifically with them about differences between Ghana's and Brazil's cassava (mandioca). I'll also be back in Belo Horizonte for a few days, in Minas Gerais.

On another front, as those who follow me on Betumi's facebook or instagram (franatbetumi) or @theghanacookbook twitter account may have noticed, I'm working to develop a press cookie ("biscuit") dough using naturally gluten-free flours from Ghana. First two efforts were disastrous, but #3 was eaten pretty quickly. I've begun with millet, white rice, corn, tapioca, and tigernut flour. Will continue the experiments after returning from Brazil. Any advice or suggestions? Ha anyone tried substituting coconut oil for part of the butter or margarine? What about sorghum flour?

               

#1 Disaster

 

#2 Worse

#3 Getting there

Racism and food color preference: white corn, white wheat, white rice

I wonder about a connection between racism and food color preferences in sub-Saharan Africa, where "white" is always the best (e.g., corn, rice, flour). In James McCann's important Maize and Grace, Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000, he explains how much of southern Africa's preference for white corn over multi-colored corn evolved from policies of colonial governments  ("What's in a color," pp. 111-118).

Similarly, Ghana produces no wheat of its own, but imports wheat flour heavily from places like the U.S., and white bread has long been considered more prestigious than flour from any locally grown grains or root crops. While recently "brown bread" has begun to appear (also from imported flour), traditional breads from grains and processed cassava and plantains, etc., seem to have no future. I realize this is mixing other things besides simple color issues, but it still gives me pause.

In Nigerian poet Flora Nwapa's poems Cassava Song and Rice Song, cassava is the nurturer and imported rice is the enemy. It seems strange to Westerners to hear rice being denounced that way. Not every African grows up eating rice. Yes, there are rice growing areas, but even in Ghana, the more nutritious native rice from the Northern regions is being supplanted by subsidized imported white rice from places like the U.S. and Thailand (often lower quality, broken rice, too). It is said that Ghana now imports about 80% of its rice from these two countries. The inability of indigenous rice farmers to compete against white wheat flour or white rice has negative consequences for development.

All of this makes me very sad, and I long for people to recognize and change these realities.