Finger Food

Do you know that feeling when there is oil on your fingers, and even after washing them the only way to get it off is by wiping them on a rugged surface? That is what it used to feel like to eat anything with my hands. I couldn’t stand it. I would wipe my hands on napkins after every bite, unable to get the feeling of grease off my fingers. In the States, the only finger foods are ones that have been deep fried. In Ghana, eating with your hands is a practice that requires etiquette and skill. It is an ability I did not know I had lacked.

My first week, when I was asked if I had ever eaten with my hands, I said Of course! thinking that having eaten fries before would be all the knowledge that I would need. I was given a skeptical look and a plate of jollof with chicken and told to enjoy. I was sorely out of my expertise. You do not use both hands, food should not be going all over your shirt, and you finish everything on your plate.

Technique I have since learned:

1. You may only eat with your right hand, even touching food with the left hand is considered rude

2. Rice is rolled and squeezed into a ball in your palm so that you may place it into your mouth

3. Most meals are served with a liquid element (smooth soup with meat), and the swallowing element (fufu, banku, omu tuo, kenke, among others). This swallowing element is a type of pounded legume that has a dough-like consistency. You use your knuckles and fingers to pluck off pieces of these swallowing foods, and you dip it into the soup.

   1. Now, swallowing element you ask? Everything is swallowed, what do you mean! I had the same response. These swallowing foods are swallowed without chewing, because they are too sticky on your teeth. That is what is meant by swallowing foods. When I was first presented with these swallowing foods , I was mal-equipped at maneuvering off pieces without ruining the texture of the entire food. I have since gained an elementary understanding of the pointer-middle fingers’ knuckle technique.

Now, all of this long-winded explanation on eating food is to say that I have since gained a deep appreciation for eating food with your hands. To eat with your hands is to be intimately connected to your food, and eating from the same bowl as others brings you closer to them, too. Eating is a shared activity. Further, eating with your hands now brings me a comfort I had never known before. Whereas I could not even stomach touching chicken wings, I now miss the way food brings a warmth that travels from your fingers to your heart. I so dearly miss it.

- Crystal