I have been visiting a few places this festive season, sampling Xmas meals at homes and receptions; and I am ready now to present my preliminary report to friends and followers.
Menus I have seen served all over include the following: Pale and tasteless jollof rice decorated with spicy homegrown drum sticks; Ghana fried rice dipped in oil, awaiting a Chinese to come and fry.
Next was bow-legged apem ampesie and kontomire stew pampered with Winneba Youth herrings; soft and sweaty fried plantains relaxed in happy beans stew, with slippery boiled eggs on the lookout. Then came okro soup with dzomi, hosting three wide-awake tilapia resting on finger balls of banku.
If those did not pass my taste test, I did not give up. I finally met my ‘meeter’ last Wednesday: Green Green soup with tender ‘Yemuadie’ tossed center-stage, and guarded by two Cape Coast crabs.
Waiting at the touchline were organic grasscutter spare parts conveyed by express from Mankesim, and a drizzle of Agona mushrooms. In attendance were five bashful snails from Mensakrom almost shivering, without their winter coat.
Within a sea of abunuabunu soup, the award winning bowl before me could as well be labelled as ‘Yemuadie and Friends Ltd.’
‘Yemuadie,’ is a bowl of assorted livestock entrails: liver, bladder, kidney, gizzard, lungs, etc. But these are often standalones and less appealing until collectively wrapped in a perforated stomach wall, known in Ghana as ‘Towel.’
A little strip of small intestines is carefully wound around the loose pack, terminating in a diminutive knot. Firm and secure, the Yemuadie wrap is now sealed and stamped, ready for the market. During shipment, the entire sealed package could as well be labelled, ‘Fragile, Please Handle with Care.’
Being tender, ‘Yemuadie’ was largely a monopoly of children and senior citizens, and been Nature’s prescription from time immemorial. These days the senior citizen monopoly has been disturbed by the young at heart, who are fighting inflation. It is healthy, simple, and good for the budget, they say.
And how do you consume the delicacy? Two ways. You open the ‘Yemuadie’ wrapper and pick the spare parts for itemized consumption; alternatively you may simply consider the entire package as ‘Yemuadie Sandwich’ (superior to Burger King) sinking your teeth into the towel together with cheese, spare parts and all, while whipping misaligned parts in line.
If you decide to eat the contents one at a time, you may consider the towel as your ‘suffer-to-gain’ treat; not hurriedly consumed but reserved for the grand finale, and tossed down the throat just before closing prayers. That way you can thank your Maker for a good meal, while the standing ovation lasts.
Whenever you see a long queue at the soup portal of your local chop bar, it is most likely a ‘Yemuadie’ traffic jam. Here prospective clients stretch their necks over the simmering soup. Seated behind the colossal soup pot is the dedicated soup server who responds to client preferences.
‘Yeeees.’ The next client then scans the pot and finger-points his choices as the vendor stirs the boiling soup bottom up, revealing the entire inventory of Yemuadie and Friends. This way the assorted meat chunks spin and flip in a competitive crave for attention.
‘Yes, not this one, not that one, No, no, ehee, exactly that, pepeepe,’ as the client grins from ear to ear. That’s often a signal that the ‘point and pick’ procedure has worked.
The vendor politely scoops the desired chunk, carefully dropping unwanted intrusions and fills your bowl to the brim, soup and all. If the next client in line is pleased with the choices made by the client before him, he may whisper to the vendor to repeat the winning formula, skipping the ‘point and pick’ segment.
Yemuadie attracted formal attention recently after the Minister for Trade and Industry scared the nation with a long list of items whose importation the Government plans to restrict.
Until then, very few knew our favorite Yemuadie is largely imported, with the country spending $164 million every year! As a sovereign nation, we may have decided to import everything under the sun: rice, diapers, tooth pick, matches, candle, poultry, livestock, and Yemuadie.
And who are our merciful suppliers: largely Europe and USA using our cold stores as outlets! That is where Ghana’s primary soup delicacy, Towel and accessories largely originate.
So then, how about the following Breaking News to be released towards the New Year. “There has been a major shortage of Yemuadie in Ghana this festive season, leading to long queues at Ghanaian chop bars.”
What may have caused this unusual shortage?
It is the Russian-Ukraine War, according to CNN.