Mohalenyane Phakela
FIVE Ghanaian chefs, who arrived in the country this past week will start training local chefs from different local hospitality establishments tomorrow.
Chefs, Frederick Opoku, Bertha Awuakye, Isaac Boahene, Bowa Adamusa from the Golden Tulip Hotel in Kumasi City as well as Sala Abubakari from Zaina Lodge Safari will commence their work at Blue Mountain Inn in Teyateyaneng.
They will spend a week at Blue Mountain and thereafter, head to Mountain View Hotel in Leribe, Hotel Mount Maluti in Mohale’s Hoek, Khotsong Lodge in Thaba Bosiu and finally, Scenery Guest House and Lakeview in Maseru East.
Their visit is part of the exchange programme between Lesotho Chefs Association and Chefs Association of Ghana. Lesotho is expected to send its own chefs to Ghana in the near future.
The relationship between LCA and CAG was established in March this year when nine local culinary arts students were sent to Ghana for a six-month internship programme at different hotels in Accra. They returned home last month.
The president of Lesotho Chefs Association, Chef Donald Moletsane, said the visiting chefs will be in Lesotho for two months training local chefs and also teaching them to prepare Ghanaian cuisine.
“Each chef has their own field of expertise such as pastry, hot production, cold kitchen and the bar,” Chef Donald told Xpress People.
“Before they leave the country we will have a festival featuring Lesotho and Ghana’s traditional dishes.
“We had planned to include a number of local hospitality establishments but they were reluctant to accommodate the chefs. However, we thank Ghana for deploying their chefs during this busy season who will not be paid anything for their work by our establishments”.
For their part, the Ghanaian chefs said that they were already enjoying the warm hospitality and were looking forward to also learning about Lesotho’s cuisine.
“The Minister of Tourism (Mamotsie Motsie) has already given us a warm reception which shows that our stay will be a fantastic one.
“We hope that this will strengthen the relations between Ghana and Lesotho to yield more rewards,” Chef Opoku said.
He said that Basotho can expect to taste dishes such as Fufu with good light soup, Tz, Palava sauce which is served with yam and Banku Tilapia which goes with hot pepper among many others.
Chef Awuakye said the only Lesotho dishes they knew were pap and samp, adding, “We are looking forward to learning how the local food is prepared as everything seems to be prepared with natural ingredients”.