Accra, July 20

Day Twenty-three

I’m not sure how many of you watch Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel. For those that aren’t familiar, “Tony” is this snarky chef from New York City that travels the globe and passes judgment on world cuisine. Jesse’s a big fan of the show, so we TiVo it and occasionally I’ll watch an episode or two. Despite the fact that Bourdain is known for his attitude, he’s usually very kind when it comes to critiquing strange concoctions abroad. Maybe kind isn’t the right word—just adventurous. When Jesse and I saw he was doing an episode on Ghana, we eagerly watched (and re-watched) it in order to get a feel for what was in store for us.

Now, four weeks later, I’m in Ghana re-living Anthony Bourdain’s culinary exploits with some new friends from Tufts University who have also seen the episode. In particular, there’s a chop bar (a local restaurant that serves a reliable—i.e., unchanging—menu of staple dishes) in the Osu neighborhood of Accra. Tony tried this chop bar on international television and it has since (we’ve heard) sky-rocketed to fame. This is relative sky-rocketing, though, so don’t get your hopes up. In general, Ghanaians eat dinner rather late, so we showed up to the restaurant around 7:45 or 8pm, expecting to see a decent crowd. We were alone….

Most of the dishes on the menu were unavailable by the time we arrived. “Local” restaurants do all of their cooking for the lunch crowd, so if you show up for dinner you are assuredly eating leftovers from lunch that day. They’re usually still warm thanks to some glowing charcoal embers, but they’re rarely made-to-order in the evening hours. When the lunch-menu items run out, they’re out for the day—as was the situation with most of the menu when we arrived for dinner that night. Sadly, no grass-cutter (local rodent) remained. Red-red (black-eyed pea mash), again, I suppose. ☺

We asked the waitress about drinking some palm wine—a homebrew downed by Bourdain on his Ghana-episode. She didn’t have any. We inquired about other local drinks, and she told us about this “African gin” (doubtful it’s really gin) called “Akpetshie.” When we asked her if we could try some of that instead, she disappointed us once again by telling us it wasn’t available at her chop bar. After wrapping up the meal, we wandered the streets aimlessly for a little while, watching beauty “saloons” and convenience stores shut their doors for the night.

We decided to call it an evening and piled five people into a cab for the ride home to the ‘burbs. We made it about 200 yards down Oxford Street when someone decided to tell the cabbie that we were looking for Akpetshie and hadn’t been able to find any. “Do you really want some?” he asked. “YES!” screamed the male half of the car. He pulled into a roundabout and drove 360 degrees, heading south down Oxford Street, back to the neighborhood from which we had just come.

The answer to the Akpetshie problem—the Osu Night Market, another of Tony’s TV adventures. The Night Market is just what the name implies—a market selling all the luxuries of a day market—toasters, oranges, soda—but lit by a series of electric lights and interspersed candles. The cabbie pulls over at “Julie’s Spot,” a cinderblock bar, no more than 12’ x 12’ inside, painted Carolina blue. The three or four locals in the joint immediately want to know where all the Obrunis are from, and everyone starts yammering at the same time. The Tufts boys quickly decide to buy a full round of Akpetshie shots for the bar, and before long everyone is clinking glasses and downing this grain alcohol, dubbed “Africa’s finest gin.” Eeeeh…think of a slightly milder version of Everclear. I’m sure some of you UGA folks remember what that tastes like—especially if you ever drank with Deepak and Sachin.

I look over and notice that the cabbie’s taking shots with us (probably not the smartest thing a bunch of Public Health students have ever done). We go to pay the bill and the female barkeep quotes us a price of 23 cedis. We panic! It’s still only the equivalent of 15 US dollars, but it’s a bit more expensive than we were expecting. We all start to rummage through our wallets for money. “No, no, no,” cautions the cabbie. She’s quoting a price using the old money standard (before re-denomination of the currency in 2007). It turns out the 10 shots cost us 2.3 cedis, not 23 cedis—the equivalent of 1.5 US dollars (not 15). That’s right. 15 cents per shot. I fleetingly think about how much different (i.e. worse) college would have been if this is what alcohol cost in Athens.

We jump in the cab, four in the backseat, one in the front, and head home to Legon feeling like we’ve had a somewhat “successful” rehashing of Anthony Bourdain’s Accra-adventure. No palm wine yet, but plans are still “brewing” ☺