Top Traditional Kitchenwares Unique to Every Ghanaian Home

When you go to every home in Ghana, there are some unique items(mostly kitchenwares) you can find. Whether it’s a rich, middle class, or poor home, and these are items you can’t easily find anywhere else in the world.

You might find an item that looks like what we have here in Ghana, but it’s always a little different and unique.

These kitchenwares have their importance. Because of modernization and technology, many people may not find these items very important, but they still have them because there’s some kind of originality to them.

If you are a Ghanaian who is reading this article, you know all of these items, but they will be new to foreigners.

Below are 4 kitchenwares that are unique to every Ghanaian home.

The Asanka and Tapoli (Grinding Pot)

Blenders came to steal the work of the grinding pot but many people still use it. The only disadvantage is the effort you use when grinding and the fact that you can’t grind too much spices at the same time.

But if you need hot pepper to use to eat your banku, or you want to grind pepper and add kontomire to it, you can’t do that with a blender, you wouldn’t enjoy it. The grinding pot is in every home, no matter how rich you get, you will still need it.

Even Ghanaians living abroad buy and take it along with them when they travel.

Kitchen Stool

You will find a kitchen stool in every home in Ghana. The Ewe’s from the Volta Region of Ghana call this the “women stool” because it’s mostly women who use it when they are cooking.

In the past, women used to put three large stones together, start a fire in it to cook, people still do that nowadays, it’s just not very common. When you’re cooking on such a setup, you can’t sit on a plastic chair, or stand.

You need a kitchen stool. That setup developed into coal pots, and to cook foods like fufu, banku, apkle, you need a kitchen stool. That is why it is so important.

Coal Pot

The stove thought it could steal the work of a local coal pot, it did steal one of its responsibilities though. Nowadays, you can cook almost everything on a stove, people use one hand to cook banku, even though it’s a bit difficult.

But you can’t roast a tilapia on a gas stove. You either need a barbecue grill or a coal pot. You can warm water for bathing on a coal pot, cook food in large amounts on a coal pot.

You will find a coal pot in every Ghanaian home.

Mortar and Pestle

Again, fufu blenders and neat fufu flour thought they could steal the work of the mortar and pestle. But some Ghanaians still prefer the “timtim”( the sound the pestle makes when it pounds fufu in the mortar).

If you’re one of those people, then you probably have a pestle and mortar at home. Nigerians love to eat fufu as well, but they prepare theirs with yam flour. They do not pound it. 

It is evident that Ghanaians have these unique kitchenwares because of the kind of foods we eat. If we didn’t have coal pots, how would we have prepared banku using the cauldron, the two metal rods, and canoe paddle-like stick?

If we didn’t have kitchen stools, where would we sit to cook? And what would we have used to grind our spices? Technology can bring all the new and modern kitchenwares, but many Ghanaians still prefer to go the old way.

Do you have any of these items at home?