What’s on the menu for cocoa farmers

Here’s the latest post from Erica Kyere of Kuapa Kokoo Ltd:

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. This is what every mother tells her daughter right from when she can help out in the kitchen.

Cooking is traditionally done by women in Ghana and although it is not written anywhere, every woman takes control of the cooking in the home. It’s one way to attract a good man to marry and that is why mothers hand down their unwritten recipes to their female children right from a very tender age.

Cooking in a cocoa farming village

Cooking is done in the kitchen – which is often outdoors. Food in the forest belt of Ghana where cocoa is grown is made from Cassava, plantain, Yam, Rice, Maize, Garden eggs, Kontonmire (our spinach), okro, Fish, beef, mutton and Chicken.

Most farmers cook twice a day – Porridges , Ampesi(Yam and Plantain) with Abomu (Kontonmire and or garden eggs with pepper and onion)and rice with stew are prepared in the mornings or mid mornings whilst Fufu (pounded cassava and plantain) and banku (fermented corn dough and cassava dough) with soup are prepared in the evenings.

On special occasions like Christmas and Easter, Rice and Chicken Stew, rice balls or fufu with chicken soup is prepared.

Raphael helping make fufu

You can see much more about the foods and recipes of cocoa farmers at PaPaPaaLive – where children of Great Fammis School take you on a journey of discovery of all the foods and ingredients they use in everyday cooking – see the taster here.  This is just one of a great series of webcasts that schools can subscribe to as a great basis for classroom discussion.

Ghanaian children describe what they eat and how its cooked

Announcing the winners of the Divine literary quote competition!

We received some wonderfully creative entries to the Easter competition we ran in partnership with Penguin books!  We asked you to amend your favourite classic literary quote and make it truly Divine.  See here for all the entries received.

The two winners are Sue Smith with her twist on Mark Twain’s famous quote.  It reads, “When angry count to four; when very angry swear.  If that doesn’t work, eat Divine chocolate”.

S won with, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of free time and spare change must be in want of some chocolate”, a novel take on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice!  This was a popular one to choose – we went for the one we liked best!

Congratulations the two of you – you have one lots of delicious Divine chocolate and Penguin books – on their way to you soon.

Write your own Divine Literary Quote

‘Thoughts are divine’ from Orlando by Virginia Woolf

‘I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead.’ from Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw

“‘Darling,’ she said. ‘How too divine” from Vile bodies by Evelyn Waugh

This Easter, Penguin Classics and Divine have got together to celebrate all that’s Divine and chocolaty in classic literature. Check out our large milk and dark chocolate eggs for a competition to win chocolate and Penguin books.

Come up with your own Divine quote in the style of your favourite  literature classic and we’ll send our favourite a selection of Divine chocolate! Post your idea in the comments below.

The origins of Easter Eggs…

In the UK and Europe, the first Easter eggs were dyed, painted and decorated hen, duck or goose eggs, this is still carried on in parts of the world today but you cannot eat them. As time went by, artificial eggs were made and by the end of the 17th century, manufactured eggs were available for purchase at Easter, for giving as Easter gifts and presents.

Easter eggs continued to evolve through the 18th and into the 19th Century, with hollow cardboard Easter eggs filled with Easter gifts and decorated, culminating with the fabulous Faberge Eggs. Encrusted with jewels, they were made for the Czar’s of Russia by Carl Faberge, a French jeweller. Surely these were the ‘ultimate’ Easter gift to buy even a tiny one now would set you back several millions pounds.

It was in the early 1800’s that the first chocolate Easter egg appeared in Germany and France and soon spread to the rest of Europe and beyond. The first chocolate eggs were solid soon followed by hollow eggs. Although making hollow eggs at that time was no mean feat, because the easily worked chocolate we use today didn’t exist then, they had to use a paste made from ground roasted Cacao beans. By the turn of the 19th Century, the discovery of the modern chocolate making process and improved mass manufacturing methods meant that the Chocolate Easter Egg was fast becoming the Easter Gift of choice in the UK and parts of Europe, and by the 1960’s it was well established worldwide.

Now that you’re a eggspert check out the Divine Easter advertising for 2009 (below), then go and try a Divine Easter Egg for yourself…..