Ghanian food

If I had a therapist he would say that need to write this:

The food in Ghana...

The food is hardly edible - big balls of uncooked dough known as 'fufu' and 'banku' eaten with a watery soup usually involving a mildly putrid piece of fish that was probably caught several mornings ago, ripened in the sun for awhile, smoked to death, ripened further by the sun and then served. I understand that the lack of refrigeration is a problem, but seriously - there has to be a better way to do fish than one in which the end product smells more like food for fish than food for people. Overall, I personally prefer my starches cooked and my fish on the raw side.

I can find no explanation as to why the food is so umm... interesting. There is an abundance of tomatoes, onions, carrots and you commonly see vast strips of chilies drying on the roadside. Every family seems to own goats and chickens but I almost never saw the meat eaten and the few tomato, onion and egg omelets I had were great but rare. Once I came home after dinner without informing them that I would do so and was greeted with a great omelet, made even better by the mother explaining that they had made fish but I had missed dinner, so I would have to settle for an omelet.

When meat was served it often came as a large piece of gristle. I was told that this is the hide of the animal? I think something may have been lost in translation during that particular conversation, but what ever it is, the locals think it's really good. I can't say much about it other than that it has the taste and texture of a massive piece of rubbery gristle. Every once in awhile I would find a stand selling sausages and stop immediately to get one. They are partially precooked and then upon ordering, it is deeply scored, rubbed with a seasoning salt, drizzled with oil and cooked fully. With the addition of ketchup I could see this becoming quite popular back home.

When chicken was served with the Fufu and Banku it commonly came as a collection of boney and rather meatless joints which I was never entirely sure what to do with. After a few meals during which I explained "But I'm eating all the meat?!" I began to get legs and breast pieces. The fried chicken in the roadside stands came as a spine with the shoulders, ribcage and about one bone's worth of each wing still attached. Not all that crazy until one learns who it's eaten. The entire piece, bones and all is to be devoured. The furthest I ever got was to chew up a few of the softer rib bones, but I hear that the spinal cord has great flavor.