Nutritious meal Alert – Gwate Acha

This Acha cereal brought back memories while I was preparing it. During a practical class in school, we were asked to make specific meals for different people. For example, prepare a meal for a diabetic man. We were given all the statistics of the person as well as a little of the health history. I cannot vividly remember the person I was to cook for now but I know that we could be creative as long as we designed a nutritious meal appropriately.

So I went looking through food columns in newspapers. At that time the internet was a luxury and one would queue up to get a place at the café in the school. While perusing, I saw a dish called Gwate Acha. The word Hungry rice was used as the English name for Acha. I was excited about it; I modified the recipe a bit and decided to look for the Acha in the market. Every time I called Acha to a market woman she would just shake her head. I decided to use Hungry rice. I was told that they did not have the type of rice I was looking for but they had other types. Meanwhile, I never saw the Acha grains before in my life. I thought to myself, ‘One rice is as good as another, whether it is hungry or not.’ So I took plain rice and milled it but not finely.

On the day of the practical, class I was confidently preparing my ‘Gwate Acha’ when the invigilator came in. She went round, one by one and I had finished preparing my dish. It was a very fast one. She picked up my placard and read ‘Gwate Acha, interesting.’ Then she informed me that although she was Yoruba she had lived in the North for many years. She looked at the food and she laughed her heart out. “This is not Acha but the food tastes and looks good.” I was mortified. I cannot remember what I was scored but I learnt a big lesson that day.

Anyway, check out this Gwate Acha I put together quickly. This one is the real Acha and its my version of the Gwate Acha. It tastes super delicious.

Updates: From feedback, I learnt that Gwate Acha is more ‘fluidy’ than this creation. The name should probably be ‘Fried Acha’ or something close. I will leave it this way though. The idea is that we can try different recipes just to diversify our meals.