Hattiesburg American Seen & Heard July 10,2008

Seen & Heard: Community cooks with Father Charles
By Judy Showalter • July 10, 2008

HE'S BACK! Father Tommy Conway, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, returned to Hattiesburg a few days ago from a well-deserved vacation.
He led a group of 44 Pine Belt residents on a tour of Ireland and then stayed behind in his homeland to visit family and friends.
While Father Tommy was away, he left his parishioners in the capable hands of Father Charles Ahenkorah.
Father Charles, a native of Ghana, has been staying temporarily in a small apartment above the parish offices of St. Thomas. He enjoys cooking, and the enticing aroma of the West African delicacies he has been preparing upstairs permeates downstairs to the St. Thomas Parish Center.
So many visitors to the parish office inquired about the wonderful aroma in the air that the office staff eventually persuaded Father Charles to share the cooking skills he learned from his mother with some interested members of the community.
Recently, Father Charles; his "sous chef" Tony Taylor, a member of St. Thomas Church; and several cooking enthusiasts gathered in the St. Thomas Parish kitchen for a cooking lesson with Father Charles. I was thrilled to receive the invitation to attend this interesting cultural exchange.
Father Charles prepared a typical West African spicy chicken and mixed vegetable stew, while Taylor worked on a smoked turkey soup, which was even spicier than the stew.
Father Charles and Taylor adjusted the recipes to include ingredients that are available here, and they toned down the pepper a bit to make it more palatable for our American taste buds.
Father Charles also prepared fou fou, a staple food in West Africa made from boiled, then sun-dried yams or cassava, which is later milled into flour. He explained that fou fou is a comfort food in Ghana, and the people there eat it every day.
The fou fou was prepared by adding water to the fou fou flour, which resembled uncooked grits. This mixture was placed in a pot on the stove, and then Father Charles stirred it constantly until it thickened to the creamy texture of mashed potatoes. A sampling of the fou fou revealed that it not only looked like mashed potatoes, but tasted like it too.
The fou fou was then shaped into balls and placed in a bowl, and the smoked turkey soup was served over the fou fou.
Everyone who sampled the West African food that day agreed it was delicious - and that Father Charles is a talented cook.
Will we be seeing him on the Food Network soon? Probably not, but you can get his recipe for Ghana Chicken and Mixed Vegetable Stew and learn more about him and his ministry in Ghana, West Africa, by viewing his blog at www.fathercharlesinghana.blogspot.com.
- Judy Showalter is a freelance writer who lives in Hattiesburg with her husband, James. She is the mother of one son, Mark, and is a former teacher. Contact her at judyshowalter@comcast.net.