Red Red

Spent a lazy morning in my Accra hotel, trying to get the body re-balanced after 22 hours of flying. Most of the group got up at 4am to go see the slave castle at Elmira, but since I had seen it and couldn’t imagine yet more hours in transport, I opted to stay here. After a morning of puttering, set out with a friend who also stayed back in vague search of lunch and found a lovely place with seats out on the porch and an equally lovely waiter helping us decide what to order.

Along with my fresh lime/ginger/mint  drink, I decided on Red Red, a dish with fried plantains and specially prepared beans. Delicious! And that got me thinking about other foods with repeat words. With a little help from the Internet, came up with:

• Gado-gado— Indonesian salad with shrimp chips, tofu and peanut sauce

• Cous-cous— Middle Eastern grain

• Fu-fu— the go-to Ghanaian yam-type dish.

• Mahi-mahi— a kind of fish.

• Shabu-shabu—Chinese/ Japanese hot pot dish

• Peri-peri— a pan-African hot chile pepper

So I’m imagining a dinner with all of the above and the guests required to make an Orff-style speech piece before getting to eat. Something like:

Gado-gado, Cous-cous, Shabu-shabu, Fu-fu

Mahi-mahi, Peri-peri, Red red, Yum!!

Well, I went on to make a speech piece on Sibelius, but can’t figure out how to share it on this blog. So go make up your own. And then get cooking!