Flavors of Home: A periodic series profiling the owners of ethnic markets in the Tristate

        Sylvia Yeboah named her little African food market “Akwaaba” because it means “welcome” in her native Ghanaian, but her laughter conveys the message even more clearly.

        Sometimes, you can hear the owner's big laugh outside the door of the little market, in Forest Park's Promenade Plaza. It sounds like “come on in” in any language.

        “I'll give you a discount because you are my special customer,” Ms. Yeboah (EE-ah-bah) tells the serious Nigerian man at the counter. Then she lets loose with one of her signature laughs, followed by a smile.

        It's a good bet everyone who walks into Akwaaba is a special customer. Even if a non-regular breezes in to buy a cold ginger beer, she'll neatly wrap the bottle with a paper towel and offer a straw for sipping. She takes care of everyone.

Sylvia Yeboah

        Trained as a systems specialist, Ms. Yeboah quit her job three years ago to open the market — probably because she'd rather chat with customers than tinker with computers.

        “I never get lonely here,” she says, with a Jamaican-like lilt. “The people come. The phone rings. I'm busy.”

        Her husband, Ian, an associate professor who teaches geography and black world studies at Miami University, came up with the idea for the market. The plan was to give Ms. Yeboah more time to spend with their three children, ages 4 to 9 (her sister, Emily Okeye, helps out at the store), and to meet the needs of a growing African population.

        Ms. Yeboah estimates there are more than 200 Ghanaian families living in Greater Cincinnati. These immigrants can't find in supermarkets many of the foods from their homeland — gari (ground, dried cassava), African yellow beans and palm oil, for example. They are happy to find a store like Akwaaba that's stocked with familiar ingredients.

        “We can't eat American food,” she says.

        Ms. Yeboah grew up in Accra, the capital of Ghana, which is on Africa's west coast. She moved to the United States after she finished high school to join her parents, an anesthesiologist and nurse.

Sylvia Yeboah opened her market in 1999 to serve a growing population of native Africans in the Tristate. (Craig Ruttle photos) | ZOOM |

        But when asked to name her favorite American dish, Ms. Yeboah can, after thinking hard, answer only “salad.” She still cooks and eats mostly the dishes of Ghana, even though her children (unfortunately, she says) occasionally eat fast food.

        “OK, so what do you want to know?” Ms. Yeboah asks, hand on hip.

        A sudden summer shower has chased customers away, so she has time to answer questions about the food of her country. The cuisine of Ghana centers on practical soups and stews, she says. Filling, satisfying dishes based on meat, chicken or fish, with eggplant, tomatoes and other vegetables, usually served with rice and other grains.

        “And fufu,” Ms. Yeboah says. “People from my country must eat fufu every day. You have to eat fufu before you go to sleep.”

        Fufu is a dumpling made from ground plantains or cassava root. The ground meal is mixed with water to make a dough, and then stirred into hot soup or stew to create dense fufu.

Fufu flour is used to make a traditional dish. | ZOOM |

        Some of the dishes of Ghana are spicy, made with fresh or green peppers, Ms. Yeboah says. But other than a few snacks, people in Ghana rarely eat desserts or sweets, which is surprising considering the country is a major exporter of chocolate. And even though it was a British colony for 82 years (Ghana was the first African country to gain independence, in 1957), its people have held on to few English foods, except for perhaps biscuits and tea.

        The shelves of Ms. Yeboah's market are stacked neatly with ingredients to make an authentic Ghanaian meal — dried crayfish and shrimp, fresh cassava root, cocoyam (taro root), plantains and true yams — not the smaller American tubers which are actually sweet potatoes. A freezer in the back holds large chickens, tripe and hunks of cowhide for flavoring soup. And beef cheeks.

        “There's no fat in beef cheeks,” Ms. Yeboah explains.

        A refrigerator is stacked with salted and smoked tilapia, heads and fins attached, and cords of dark, smelly fermented herring.

        “You may not like that the first time you try it,” she admits with a grin.

Akwaaba offers true yams and other African produce. | ZOOM |

        There are also ingredients more familiar to Americans, such as black-eyed peas and okra, which are African in origin. Ms. Yeboah offers many ingredients that come by truck from New York every Thursday, but she cannot match the inventory of a formidable competitor nearby — Jungle Jim's Market in Fairfield.

        The average aisle in that mega-market holds more than all of Akwaaba. Still, Ms. Yeboah claims she stocks a few authentic ingredients, such as smoked goat and husk-wrapped cornmeal dumplings called kenkey, that her giant rival does not.

        “Most people come here before they go to Jungle Jim's,” she says with a measure of defiance.

        That's another thing many other stores can't offer: The self-assured owner with the big, friendly laugh.

Recipe

        This recipe is adapted from A Taste of Africa (Ten Speed; $14.95) by Dorinda Hafner, who is a native of Ghana.

Peanut Soup with Fowl and Fufu

       6 to 8 pieces of cut up guinea fowl or chicken, or 2 pounds lean meat, such as chops or lamb shanks
       Salt and pepper, to taste
       2 large onions, finely chopped
       4 large, ripe tomatoes (peeled), or 13 ounces canned tomatoes
        2/3 cup peanut butter
       7 cups boiling water
       Chopped, fresh chiles, cayenne or red pepper flakes, to taste

FOOD GLOSSARY

• Apem: Baby plantain.     • Banku: Ghanian cornmeal dumpling.     • Capsicum: Sweet or bell pepper.     • Cassava: Also called yuca and manioc, cassava root is cooked and ground. Ground cassava is also used to make tapioca and gari.     • Chinchin: West African dough balls.     • Cocoyam: Taro root, a starchy, potato-like tuber that can be boiled, fried or baked.     • Groundnuts: Peanuts.     • Fufu: A ground meal made from plantains, cassava root or other tubers used to make dumplings for soups and stews.     • Kenkey: Cornmeal dumplings wrapped in corn husks.     • Kubecake: West African coconut rum balls.     • Loo: Ghanian term for fish or meat.     • Okro: Okra.     • Palm oil: A reddish, sweet oil made from palm nuts used for frying.     • Pepita: Pumpkin seed. Also known as egushi.     • Shallots: Spring onions.     • Spinach: A generic term used for silver beets, callaloo, dasheen and other greens native to African countries.     —Source: A Taste of Africa (Ten Speed Press; $14.95)

       4 to 8 mushrooms, cut into quarters
       2 pounds fish cutlets, salted, smoked, grilled or fried
       fufu (optional)
       24 ounces boiling water
       2 3/4 cups potato flour
       6 ounces potato flakes

        Put meat or poultry in large, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven. Season meat with salt and pepper. Add onions, stir and cook “dry” on medium heat until outside of meat or fowl is slightly cooked and sealed. Reduce to simmer.

        Chop or pulse tomatoes in processor to create puree. Add tomato puree to meat mixture and continue to simmer.

        Put peanut butter in large bowl and add 12 ounces of the boiling water. Stir to form a smooth sauce. Add to meat mixture with fresh chiles or cayenne and sliced mushrooms. Simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Pour remaining boiling water into pot and simmer on medium 30 to 40 minutes, until meat or fowl is cooked through and tender.

        Prepare fish and remove any bones. Add fish either whole or in chunks to the soup during the last 30 minutes of cooked. After adding fish, simmer a few more minutes until soup thickens. Keep soup warm.

        To make fufu, in a jug or jar, blend potato flour with 7 ounces lukewarm water to form a smooth, creamy mixture. Pour potato flakes into bowl and add 17 ounces boiling water, enough to fully cover flakes. Do not stir.

        Shake or stir potato flour mixture again and add to bowl with potato flakes. Stir vigorously. When dough is firm and smooth, moisten a small bowl with a little cold water and scoop dough into bowl, either as one large ball or individual balls. After hot Peanut Soup is ladled into individual servings, guests should spoon in fufu to form a “floating island” in their bowl. Makes 4 to 6 servings of soup; about 2 servings of fufu.

        Note: Akwaaba African Market and some other stores offer fufu mixes, which require mixing with hot water.
       

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