Interested in the cuisine of Ghana? Internationally, West African cuisine is popular. But chances are you don't know or have never tried any of it before. Broaden your knowledge and learn about authentic Ghanaian cuisines and their culture.  

In this episode of Action Antidote, we spoke to Joanna Stein, a private chef and event planner about how she immersed herself in new west African cuisine flavors. Joanna is very passionate about cooking and helps their family business in catering services. She is dedicated to having everyone get a taste of Joanna’s kitchen authentic West African Food, Ghana.

Whether you're a wanderlust or you're just someone who just wants a mental vacation, Actions Antidote will take you on a trip. Listen to this episode and get a glimpse into the country’s food culture.

 
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Listen to the podcast here:

Authentic Ghanaian Cuisine and Cultural Practices with Joanna Stein
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Those of you who’ve been listening to my podcast, especially the last few episodes, know that I’m really interested in travel, but if you’re really open to travel and travel experiences, you realize that travel is actually a two-way street. Sometimes we get up, we go out, we get in our car, on a train, on a plane and we go visit another place, but sometimes people and experiences from other places come to where we are and that’s something that has happened to me quite a bit this summer, including only a few blocks from my home where food available from my guest today, Joanna, the founder of Joanna’s Kitchen, is available at my local grocery store.

 
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Joanna, welcome to the program. 

 

Hello there. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Definitely. So, Joanna, you make food from your original homeland of Ghana and I’m sure that there are a lot of people listening to this podcast who have never had Ghanaian food or never even had West African food and so what I’m wondering is what can people expect when they try it and what should people be thinking about going into the experience? 

 

So, Ghanaian food is very flavorful, it’s full of spice. I do definitely try to make it more of a medium mild so everybody is able to enjoy it but I also do have gluten-free option, I have vegan option, and then meat option. I try to make it so that everybody, regardless of your dietary restriction, you’re able to enjoy the cuisines, a little bit of everybody. So it’s just full of flavor. I’ve had a lot of clients from all parts of the world tell me that it kind of reminds them of like their grandma’s cooking or their back home cooking so it definitely feels good to be able to connect with people from all over and not just Ghanaian people.

 

When you talk about the spices, are you talking about being like heavily spiced, and if someone were to want the full authentic Ghanaian experience, would this most likely be a level of spice that overwhelms the average American here in Colorado or anywhere else?

 

Yes, I would definitely say the average Ghanaian is more of a high to an extra high so it’s more peppery and more spicy and, for me, my experience is just for you just to try our cuisine. So I definitely have the spice there but my goal is more of the flavor. And so like our bell peppers, we use lemongrass, I use a little bit from every cuisine so we use like curry, we use nutmeg, and so I feel like it’s amazing to be able to like see the same ingredients that we use here make the same dishes and so that’s why I also offer cooking classes because I love to be able to show people that you can make this dish, like it’s not unique ingredients that I’m getting sort of from Ghana, like there is certain things like palm oil but most dishes you are able to create yourself as well.

 

Oh, wow. Yeah, because your business is not just about the food, it’s about the catering and the cooking classes.