Food and Drink

Ghanaian fast food is found at chop bars, which have soups and side dishes waiting. The cheapest food is sold on the roadsides, while most hotels have pricier restaurants attached that generally serve Western food. Larger cities such as Accra have a wide selection of fast food restaurants.

Soups are the staple of Ghanaian cuisine and are eaten with fufu (either pounded plaintain and cassava or yam), kokonte (cassava meal cooked into a paste), banku (fermented corn dough), boiled yams, rice, bread, plantains, or cassava. The most common soups are light soup, palmnut soup, and groundnut (peanut) soup. Other Ghanaian favourites include gari foto (eggs, onions, dried shrimp, tomatoes, and gari), agushie (squash seed sauce, tomatoes, and onions), omo tuo (mashed rice balls with groundnut soup), jollof rice, red-red (fried plantain and bean sauce), kenkey (boiled fermented corn dough) and fish, kelewele (deep fried and heavily spiced plantain) and shito (hot pepper sauce). Soups and sauces are prepared with either fish, goat, mutton or chicken.

In Northern Ghana, Western cuisine can be found in hotel restaurants – Comme Ci Comme Ca in Bolgtanga is especially recommended. Main Northern Ghanaian staples include T.Z. (millet and maize ground and boiled), rice, yam, bread, guinea fowl eggs, beef, guinea fowI, goat, and sheep. Staple soups include green-green, (veggies, tomatoes, red pepper, onions, and Dawa-dawa ) groundnut (peanut) soup, and okra soup.

Bottles of mineral water, carbonated drinks like Coke (called ‘minerals’), and a variety of Ghanaian beer are readily available at low cost. Traditional alcoholic drinks — akpeteshie, pito, and palm wine – are also easily found at any roadside open-air bar, or ‘spot’.