Friday, April 10, 2009

Life: The Waakye Paradox

I know I should be thinking about more important things and I assure you - I do, but this one has been a long-running dilemma that needs solving right now!

Can anyone explain to me why waakye (or 'Rice & Peas... but better' to my non-Ghanaian friends) is often described as a breakfast meal?

I know it can be eaten any time of day and that some people also have rice dishes like jollof in the morning, but no one would ever call jollof a breakfast meal whereas waakye apparently has some particular association with breakfast.

The reason I have heard posits that it has something to do with the black-eyed beans not being good for night-time digestion. I have yet to hear of anyone calling 'yorke gari' or other bean dishes morning meals though.

Personally, I went to Kwabotwe and still have fond memories of breaking out of (...sorry, I meant sending other people from) the boarding house (*ahem*) into the middle of Kotokraba Market to buy me waakye by night from Jet. It's been a night meal for me ever since...

... so what's this 'waakye for breakfast' nonsense?

5 comments:

  1. hey, i have waakye for breakfast all the time. hehe. It fills your belly all day. In HIPC times, such means come in handy!

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  2. The beans makes your tummy bloat so you feel really full, the pepper burns your mouth and belly which keeps you awake and charged for work. The welley exercises your jaw and gives you a sense of having worked out and because of the beans, you step out a few times to go and 'pass gas'- let's call that working out. Now which one meal in the world gives you such a great morning? Great day even?

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  3. So what would you say about people eating fufu at 6 am before hitting the streets of or the farm depending on where they live? The Akuapems are notted for doing that.

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  4. Duke, Duke, fufu is the ish! I'm larteh and we do fufu like it was our life partner(and it actually is). Morning, afternoon, evening... sometimes brunch.

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  5. Waakye or rice&beans is apparently a morning meal because the people that sell it make all their meals in morning and beans doesn't keep so well in the heat. So you are warned by waakye connoisseurs not to touch the stuff after the morning rush as you are likely to get food poisoning from the beans.

    I know this because I asked my older brother, who is an avid waakye eater himself, that very same question many years ago lol And through first hand experience from eating waakye in the afternoon once, the answer was proven true. Needless to say I haven't touched the stuff since.

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