Tom Brown, Yam Balls (Yele Kakro), and Tiger Nuts

Breakfast was a porridge made from what's called

tom brown. It's a toasted corn or sesame flour

that is admittedly bland when eaten straight (mix

with one cup water to incorporate, one cup boiling

water to heat), and has a texture like a smooth

paste. Adding raw sugar, those brown crystals that

are becoming popular in coffee shops, improve the

flavor and the texture considerably. Brown sugar

or granulated sugar would do similar things to the

flavor, but the raw sugar has an excellent grit to it.

On top of that, we added some peanuts and milk.

More often, it's eaten with evaporated milk, that

stuff that comes in cans and reminds me of old people

and the Royal Empire, but it wasn't worth it to open

a can just for that little bit, so we stuck to milk. I like

it just with the sugar and a few peanuts, personally.

After breakfast and a bit of work setting up the rest of

the week, we turned out attention to the stack of yams

that were acquired yesterday. African yams are not at

all like the orange tubers in grocery stores back in the

states, these things are more like overgrown potatoes,

both in texture and in taste, but they've got a bit of a

lingering aftertaste. Anything I do over here with yams

can be done back home with potatoes, no problem. One

thing I'd like to actually experiment with is using half

idaho or red potato, half sweet potato, and seeing if they

remain solid enough to fry at the end.

Fran decided we would make these yam balls, which

mayor may not be called yele kakro in one of the many

Ghanaian languages. I'm no expert, unfortunately, so if

I'm wrong, feel free to point me in the right direction.

We started by washing and peeling the yams, chopping

them up, and boiling them much like one would when

making mashed potatoes. Simultaneously, tomatoes

were blanched and peeled and chopped up with some

onions. Half of the mixtures went onthe stove to cook

and caramelize, the other half stayed raw.

Once the yams were finished cooking, they were mashed and

combined with both the cooked and raw tomato and onion

mixture and two eggs. Tossed in were thyme and red pepper

and some salt, and then we set to work rolling them into

little flour-coated balls. The balls were fried in a pot of

saffloweroil and strained. They're fantastic hot because the

outside stays crispy for only so long, but when I make them

at home,I'll be packing some away in the refrigerator to pull

out at lunchtime.

(The recipe is so easy and a lot of fun, I'm thinking of

teaching it to the girls that I'll be tutoring in July and August.)

I know, how good do they look? Although, to be honest, it's

a given that you fry something starchy with spices, it's going

to be delicious. You can add whatever spices you really

want to add to these things, I'd go for garlic in future batches,

maybe try a little bit of dill for more of a wintertime treat.

The last picture I have here is a bowl of what Fran calls

tiger nuts. They're pretty common down here, we bought

them off of a street vender (don't worry, they were washed

under hot water before anyone ate them). They're also pretty

common in Spain. They're chewed but not eaten entirely, the

hard outer husk is spit out at the end. They can be crushed up

and the milk can be drained, sort of like coconut milk, and the

taste is sweet and nutty, like a sweet almond.

Tomorrow, we head out to the University of Ghana at Legon to talk to a

few people in the food science and nutrition departments. I'm

excited and a little bit nervous, to be honest.