LA: Have you ever had any mishaps in the kitchen? Have there ever been any recipes that have gone a little awry?
SA: Oh yeah, definitely. I think I would say some of my big challenges have been actually on the chocolate side. Chocolate is extremely temperamental. And one or two degrees could change everything. So I’ve had tempering issues because the room was too warm and the chocolate has bloomed and you have to redo everything. I really wanted to do fruit collections with the chocolate. And so because we have amazing fruit here, and I’ve had to learn to play and be more intentional about my water content. So fruit clearly has a lot of liquid in there. And so chocolate does not like humidity, doesn’t like water. So those are some of the things that have happened in the kitchen that went very wrong. But I think for me, I always, with all the failures come success.
LA: Before we started recording, I was talking about how desperate I am to go to Ghana. I would love to go to Accra. What should I eat when I get there?
SA: Well, I would say that my favorite street food is Kelewele. It is a spiced fried plantain, and I am obsessed with everything plantain. So that’s one of the street food items. It’s basically ripe plantain that has ginger, chili and some local spices. And another plantain dish that I absolutely love is one called Tatale and Aboboi. It is overripe plantain. So when it’s turning black and someone is thinking about throwing it away, we definitely don’t. You mash it, you add some flour to it, and then some onions and some seasoning. It’s fried and served with bambara beans. Bambara beans are a beautiful bean that comes from Sahelian parts of West Africa. They grow underground like groundnuts or peanuts. And I’ve had birthdays where I will just go and have that and a glass of champagne.
LA: I’m eager for more intel like where to go and what to do in Accra, but also in Ghana more generally?
SA: There are amazing contemporary African artists from El Anantri. We’ve got galleries, we’ve got artists that are all based either in Accra as far as Ibrahim Muhammad in Red Clay in Tamale. So that’s something that’s definitely fun to do. There are beautiful nature walks, bird watching, there are beautiful waterfalls in the Volta region, so lots to do if you walk, you love nature. There’s a lot of that outside of our crop.
LA: Selassie this has been such a beautiful conversation. You’ve made me very hungry. You’ve made me desperate to visit Ghana and lots of other places in Africa, a continent that I have fairly scratched the surface of. If people want to follow your work, your chocolates, your cooking, everything else, where can they find you on the internet?
SA: On Instagram, I am S-A-T-A-D-I-K-A. And then you can also find our dining experiences on Instagram at Midunu, M-I-D-U-N-U. And for the chocolates, it’s @ M-I-D-U-N-U-CHOCOLATES with an S.
LA: If you are planning a trip to Ghana or you simply feel inspired by this episode, clearly the way to plan your trip is around the breadth of its food. Thank you for listening to Women Who Travel. I’m Lale Arikoglu and you can find me on Instagram at @Lalehannah. Our engineers are Jake Lummus, James Yost, Vince Fairchild, and Pran Bandi. The show is mixed by Ammar Lau at Macrosound. Jude Kampfner of Corporation for Independent Media is our producer. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast’s, head of Global Audio.
