Good morning, I hope you're having an amazing day.
It's Mark Wiens.
I'm in Ghana, West Africa, and today we're going to Elmina, which is a historically significant city on the Atlantic Ocean.
We're gonna meet up with a host mom who's gonna take us to the fish market.
We might find some other delicacies to eat on the way, and then we're gonna cook and eat some incredible Ghanaian food.
This is gonna be a great day and I'm excited to share it with you today.
We just stopped on the side of the highway.
They sell a lot of bush meat from the night's catch, but mainly what we're searching out is a grass cutter, which is a greater cane rat, which is really a delicacy in Ghana.
We got the grass cutter, I'm very excited.
I think, well, it's fresh, so we gotta eat it today.
During our fishing food meal from Elvina, we're also gonna have grass cutter.
We made it through Cape Coast, driving through Cape Coast, and we're on our way to El Mina, which is a few kilometers west.
All right, we have just arrived in Elmina.
We're gonna meet up with our host mom before we go to the fish market and to the coast.
Thank you, nice to meet you.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you very much.
Our mission here to learn about the culture and and the food and um, for sure, we want to have some grass cutter with granite soup and omoto for dinner.
So um, probably after the shopping with the fishing, we come back and then, i don't mind, i'll get a place.
I help you to to bend it and he can film everything from start to finish, And thank you very much for allowing us to use your home.
Yes, thank you very much for hosting us.
And now we're gonna head to the fish market here in El Mina.
Oh yeah, I can go in the middle, it's okay.
Everybody say hello to Emmanuel.
Hi.
We're gonna be hanging out with him for the next few days.
We're going shopping for the food and we're gonna see the fish market and the boats.
We have just arrived at the well, actually it's right at the castle, but this is where the market is in Elmina.
So we're gonna go to the market.
We're gonna go to the fish market.
You can smell the fish in the air.
You can smell that salty, that salty air.
The humidity.
Oh, that's the fort, and this is the castle over here.
This is a bird's eye view of Elmina, the market area.
You can see the inlet of water comes in.
We're really close to I mean, we're on the coast, but then this is some water that comes in where the boats dock, where they bring their fresh catch.
It's just a sea of colorful canoes, wooden boats.
We're just getting into the market now.
Oh yeah, and immediately you can really smell the fish.
It's colorful, it's vibrant, it's a little chaotic.
It's a real overdose of senses, the colors, the smells, the sounds.
You do have to be very careful taking photos here.
Some people don't want their photo taken, but overall it's quite spacious, most people are friendly.
Yeah, this is the full fish market experience of Elmina, that's for sure.
We moved across the street now here to buy some vegetables.
We're gonna get some, I think it looks like a yellow eggplant.
We bought everything we need.
We're leaving the market now, but yeah, this is just the raw.
This is the real deal fish market.
On our way back to the house now to eat lunch.
Okay.
Thank you.
Mama is gonna get started making the dishes.
And she's chopping up first a big yam.
That's gonna be our base starch.
I really love hand-painted signs, and this is one of the coolest back here.
Almighty photos.
So we have eggs.
That's the hard boiled eggs, right?
The eggs right into it.
Yeah, we are going to boil it all together and then I didn't know they were gonna add the eggs right to the pot with the yams.
They cover it with a piece of plastic.
And then she added on the cover and that's gonna boil, and so it's gonna be a yam plus egg dish.
We're gonna let the yams boil until they're finished, but we're outside in the backyard now.
This is where we're gonna cook this evening for dinner, where we're gonna eat the grass cutter, which I'm very looking forward to, and the fish as well.
And Bernard is gonna cut us down some fresh coconuts.
Thank you very much.
It was hanging on the tree one minute ago.
Oh, it's so good.
Yeah, it's really nice.
It's really sweet, just a hint of sourness.
I mean, there really is nothing that refreshes and gets your juices flowing again like a coconut.
Pull open my...
My coconut, yeah he did cut it.
I wasn't that strong to pull it apart by myself.
And then you got the all natural spoon, a piece of the husk to scoop it out.
That's as good as it gets.
So you like to eat grass cutter?
Yeah, normally we do, when you visit the Chobas especially.
Okay, it's really a specialty.
Yes, The yams are all cooked.
She took out the boiled eggs and now she is just mashing the yam.
This will go inside of the yam.
But after she mashed up the yam, then separately they boiled some palm oil with onions, brought that to a simmer and then she poured in some of that hot oil into the yam.
That's kinda like hydrating it, kinda like holding it together because you can see that the yam looks a little like real starchy and kinda dry but rehydrating it with that flavorful palm oil.
So you make a bow like that.
So yummy.
Grab an egg and grab some of the yam.
The yam.
Oh, and you can see the onions in there as well.
Okay, this looks amazing.
Yeah, you can feel it's starchy and kind of dry.
Make a little ball like that.
Thank you.
It has that dry yam texture, but you can taste the flavor of the palm oil.
It is.
You would almost think it's pumpkin from the orange color.
And now I'm gonna grab some of the egg, mix it with some of the yam as well.
Yeah, so that's the combination, that's the meal combination.
You can also eat it with groundnuts.
So just got some groundnuts, which are peanuts, and then you I'm gonna take a second helping another egg with some peanuts sprinkled on top.
This is good.
Mmm.
Oh, the groundnuts.
That's really good because you've got the.
The yam is so dry that it's kind of fluffy, but then you've got the crunch of the peanuts.
They contrast the textures.
It's a little bit of a dry dish, but it was really an honor to have a chance to eat that home cooked and it's a very special dish.
Next.
We are on our way to Elmina Castle and the sun is at full blazing heat right now.
We just made it back to the house.
We're getting started cooking for dinner tonight.
And first step where Emmanuel is taking the grass cutter and you have to burn off the hair.
So he's just roasting it over the fire, burning off that hair to prepare it.
Yeah, when we talk about bushmeat in Ghana, this is really, really one of the best bushmeats.
The delicacy.
Oh, nice.
As Emmanuel and Bernard are preparing the grass cutter, Mama is frying up the fish and she's frying it in coconut oil so that aroma coming off of it, and I think she tossed in a handful of onions for that aroma.
The onions, the coconut oil, the frying fish, that smells incredible.
And I just love how she's using a knife to flip over the fish.
She has some amazing chef skills.
This is gonna be just for the pepe soup with only the grass cutter.
Grass cutter pepe.
They're using some of the grass cutter to make a grass cutter light soup with onions.
It's gonna be a pepper soup.
And then the remaining portion of the grass cutter with some of the fish is gonna go into a groundnut soup, which is another dish, both of which I'm very excited to try.
This is for grinding.
We are going to use all this pepper, grind it together.
And this is molded from clay.
Chili's garlic, there's gonna be some ginger that goes in there, a little bit of tomato.
Yeah, I can already sense it coming together.
I love seeing the different methods, the different mortar and pestles around the world.
But so many cultures have a version of mashing spices to create a paste for soups and curries.
Ghana has another beautiful version.
So now we are adding tomatoes.
And then they tossed in a couple tomatoes, which are gonna boil down.
But yeah, that's all coming together.
Actually, the grass cutter has a very unique, definitely a bushmeat aroma to it.
Let's put water.
As we're making the granola soup and then the prepared soup for the light soup, we need the rice bowl to eat with.
And it's called omotuo.
Omotuo.
Yes.
Omotuo.
All the tomatoes that were boiling, coming to grind, it's another day today.
Okay.
Let's test.
It's ready, okay.
Next, Mama is getting prepared, starting on the groundnut soup.
And so first she boiled, they're actually called garden eggs.
I think it looks like a type of eggplant, but they're called garden eggs, tomatoes, and chili.
She boiled them, and then they're gonna blend all that up to make a sauce, well, a soup.
That's groundnut paste, which is like peanut butter, which she's mixing up.
Oh, there's a little bit of grass cutter in the groundnut soup too, right?
Whenever you travel, there's just nothing better than home cooked food, a home cooked meal prepared by a family.
They've worked together to prepare dinner.
Things are coming together.
We're getting ready to eat pretty soon.
Hey, hey, hey.
She just added in the groundnut.
Immediately you can smell that nutty aroma.
Then she added in the fried fish.
That's gonna cook down and that's gonna be the groundnut soup.
Final step before we eat, she's making the rice balls.
And so she cooks the rice so it's kind of like, kind of a little bit sticky and kind of wet.
But then she actually kind of mashes it with the spoon to make it more of a sticky kind of pasty consistency.
These three guys over here taking a nap on the... They can't stay out of the sand pile.
That's really incredible how she does that.
She forms it into a perfect, almost like a softball shape, but first mashing the rice with the paddle, then into a bowl and just kind of like shaking it until it's smooth on the outside.
And a perfect ball shape.
I'm just stepping back in the kitchen.
I wish you could smell the aroma of that peanut.
It's just filling the air.
It's incredible.
Finally, our dinner is ready, and the family is gonna join in eating.
Actually the host mom, and there was papa, together with you as the two families, trying to eat this.
We're all sitting down to eat now.
We are beginning with the groundnut soup.
This is a dish I've been excited to try in Ghana, and there's nothing better than a home-cooked version of it.
I've got both a piece of fish and a piece of the grass cutter in here and I think oh, I think I got the drumstick.
I think I got the leg.
First I'll just start with the rice ball. and dip it into this.
Oh yeah, that's sticky, real sticky texture.
Oh yeah, that's hot and it's thick from the peanuts.
Oh, it's really good.
Oh, you taste the real nutty groundnut flavor.
You taste the chilis in there, a little bit of a tomato-y flavor as well.
It's thick, it's rich.
I like how it's not, this version is not oily at all.
There's no oil in there, it's just relying on that hearty peanut flavor.
Mm-hmm.
That's wonderful.
Okay, moving on to the fish.
I'll mix in with some of that rice as well.
Oh, that fish is awesome.
But yeah, the fish has been deep fried so it has that kinda like skin deep fried-ness skin on it but then rehydrated in the brown nut soup.
It's time to try the grass cutter, my first time ever.
And this is just the first.
There's just a little bit of grass cutter in here.
Most of the grass cutter is in that separate soup.
Is this the hind leg?
The hind leg?
The drumstick, and you eat it all with the skin?
All right, it feels quite tender.
Oh wow.
Mmm.
Oh, that's extremely tender.
Mmm.
And actually it's very similar to chicken, but with like a sweeter, almost like cardamom-y kind of taste to it.
And yeah, by the way, this is a, it's called a greater cane rat.
Emmanuel.
How's that?
How's that food over there?
It's so great.
It's so yummy.
Hey, the grass cutter is amazing.
I'm like amazed how tender it is.
And flavorful.
The brown nut soup was incredible, and now we're all gonna move on to second course, which is the grass cutter soup.
And so we.
I think this time I had a leg before I had the drumstick, now I think I have a piece of the back.
Oh, do you take a...
It's so good.
And what's amazing to me is it's so soft and tender.
So tender, yeah, white meat.
White meat.
But it does have a little bit of like a A sweet, a real sweet taste to it.
Really sweet meat.
And maybe because it's so fresh as well.
And then that soup that you boiled it in.
You can taste the chilies in there, the tomatoes, the onions, the ginger.
And what is this?
This is the liver?
Okay, and I just got a piece of the liver here first time grass cutter liver Yeah, that's kind of like almost has like a like a grassy kind of taste to it.
It is I.
It is grass.
It is grass.
That's why it's called the grass cutter, right?
So they run through that, they cut all the grass.
That is made of grass.
I didn't know what to expect.
I thought it would be more like a rat, but really it tasted like chicken.
So fall apart tender.
Yeah, extraordinary.
I can see why it is a delicacy in Ghana.
What a meal.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
We had an amazing time.
Bye bye.
Hey Ben, thank you so much, that was great.
I loved it, thank you.
We're staying in Cape Coast, so we just drove back from Elmina.
You can hear the waves of the Atlantic crashing behind me.
Just reflecting on today, it's been another absolutely sensational, incredible experience of a day today.
Having the chance to hang out to okay, buying the grass cutter and eating the grass cutter, that was a highlight for me because that's something I've never done.
But then also I mean going to the Elmina Fish Market, going through the market and just the raw culture, the action, the energy, the colors, the smells, and then cooking the food at home.
I wanna say a huge thank you to our entire host family.
And I was on this tour today with Can Do Land.
They set everything up, so thank you to Can Do Land Tours.
They are doing great things in Ghana.
I'll have some information in the description box below.
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Good night.
See you on the next video.
