This chapter offers a broad survey of the history of food and drinking culture in what is today called Ghana. This study aims to present changes and continuities that occurred in Ghanaian culinary culture over a period of more than 300 years. Considering the vast differences between microclimates and the more than 70 languages spoken in roughly the same area as the British Isles, it is not easy to make a comprehensive portrait of the food culture in all of Ghana. Instead, Ghanaian foods are regional and intersect with one’s gender, age, class, and ethnicity. Asante palace culinary culture, the Northern Region, coastal Gã food culture, and traditional and new table manners are the thematic topics in the chapter. Contemporary eating and drinking habits in modern Ghana reflect a direct continuation from the period before the Trans-Atlantic global trade. Despite centuries of trade with Europeans, the cuisine of Ghana continues to reflect a hybridity that allows local traditional foods to persist and take center stage as they reveal one’s regional identity and the social role one occupies in relation to that identity.

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History of Eating and Drinking in Ghana from the Sixteenth Century to the Present

  • Brandi Simpson Miller

摘要

This chapter offers a broad survey of the history of food and drinking culture in what is today called Ghana. This study aims to present changes and continuities that occurred in Ghanaian culinary culture over a period of more than 300 years. Considering the vast differences between microclimates and the more than 70 languages spoken in roughly the same area as the British Isles, it is not easy to make a comprehensive portrait of the food culture in all of Ghana. Instead, Ghanaian foods are regional and intersect with one’s gender, age, class, and ethnicity. Asante palace culinary culture, the Northern Region, coastal Gã food culture, and traditional and new table manners are the thematic topics in the chapter. Contemporary eating and drinking habits in modern Ghana reflect a direct continuation from the period before the Trans-Atlantic global trade. Despite centuries of trade with Europeans, the cuisine of Ghana continues to reflect a hybridity that allows local traditional foods to persist and take center stage as they reveal one’s regional identity and the social role one occupies in relation to that identity.