On finding West African ingredients

It's exciting to see North Americans (and Europeans) embracing West African food! Unfortunately, many of us do not live in large urban areas where we can easily locate some of the unfamiliar ingredients. Last week I made a trip to our local international market here in State College, Pennsylvania, for a spontaneous, quick runthrough of some items locally available. I was rushing, and missed many things (like cream of palm fruit aka palm butter) in the store and also cannot believe some of the words that came out of my mouth, such as saying "coconut paste" when I meant "groundnut (peanut) paste," and holding some Ga kenkey and saying it is fermented corn dough rather than that it is made from steamed fermented corn dough (with a bit of cassava dough, too). I spoke about "dried fish powder" when it would have been better to say "dried flaked fish/shrimp."

Still, I hope you find it helpful, especially if you are exploring recipes from The Ghana Cookbook.

And remember, too, that as North American tastes are changing, it is getting easier and easier to find many of these ingredients in local supermarkets, from millet flour to fresh coconut to red palm oil to taro (Ghanaians call it "cocoyam") to plantains or fresh papaya. I find many of them in our local Wegman's, Giant, Trader Joe's, Weis, or even Wal-Mart.
(Hint: there's a recipe in the book that calls for smoked turkey, which is only available around here at Christmas, so this time of year might be a good time to try it out!)


                                                                           
Note: Thank you to students Nick Weis and Jessica Stefanowiz, both from Happy Valley Communications for running video and helping set up, respectively, and for owner Jin Zhou for allowing us to film in The International Market

Tiger Nuts: Another African food discovered by US health food enthusiasts

Tiger nuts (aka "chufa," or technically, Cyperus Esculentas), are included in the 1996 initial book in the Lost Crops of Africa series (Grains, Vol. 1), published by the National Academy Press.

In Ghana people delight in eating tiger nuts raw as a snack food, kind of like peanuts (though one spits out the fibrous coating after  chewing them to extract all the sweet milky juice.) 

Back in 2009 I posted a recipe for "atadwe milkye" or tigernut pudding. At that time I had to import the tigernuts from Spain, and they required a long soaking before grinding them to make the pudding.

While preparing to have some recipe testers try their hands at making this wonderful gluten-free pudding, I began searching for a source closer to home. 

Lo and behold: the health foods community has discovered tiger nuts! Two British-born men, Jack Sims and Jim McNulty, teamed up in 2013 to begin making this product available to the U.S. market via Tigernuts USA. They are also taking things one step further by providing the option of purchasing them with some of the outer husk removed (the part that we strained out repeatedly through silk cloth in Ghana after grinding the rice and tigernuts together). And soon, they are going to have tigernut flour available! There are all sorts of possibilities for simplifying the process of making the pudding.

My first order just arrived and I'll begin trying their nuts out soon.










Also, I want to thank all the folks who have volunteered to help out with the recipe testing. We can always use more! Just fill in the form and forward it to me. Also, the first couple of volunteers have emailed the results of their efforts and you can see their photos at the pinterest site. It is very encouraging and helpful to hear from all of you, and will definitely improve the final book.