As the popularity of African dishes rises round the world, most of the conversation has focused on their appearance, spiciness, and recipes, more intensely on ownership and appropriation, but barely on how they came about.
Ghanaian Food Traditions thekitchn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thekitchn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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MUSKEGON, MI – Abeshi Ghanaian Cuisine presents a slice of Tacitus Bailey-Yabani’s culture to customers in West Michigan.
Bailey-Yabani moved to Muskegon from Ghana seven years ago. In 2018, he won StartGarden’s 5X5 Night competition to launch his food truck, which offers “what I grew up with and what my grandma used to cook for me,” Bailey-Yabani said.
Abeshi presents food inspired by West African cooking recipes that are “very close to my heart,” Bailey-Yabani said.
The word abeshi means “I’m here.”
Crossing from West Africa to West Michigan, Bailey-Yabani uses “abeshi” to chronicle his relocation, finding a home here as a restaurant owner and father of two. He calls his 5-year-old son and nearly 2-year-old daughter the first “tasters” of his new dishes.
Ghana’s kontomire stew stirs the soul
Photo: benketaro / Wikimedia Commons
I’m lucky. I live in a big city that offers an unending supply of different African cuisines. I can eat from one end of the continent to the other, sampling Moroccan, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Senegalese, and Ghanian dishes. So when I visited Ghana, I was prepared to be dazzled by the West African country’s culinary riches and I was not disappointed.
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As the first African nation to achieve independence from a European colonizer in 1957, Ghana boasts a long history of African pride and cultural preservation. All over the country, from the rural towns to the cities, displays of Ghanaian traditions, symbols, and attire were prominent. This also affected the preparation of the food, which centered on fresh local produce, and accents like banana leaves, edible flowers, and calabash shells were prominent.