As the Akuapim Traditional Area gathered to mark Akwasidae, one of the important traditional celebrations on the Akan calendar, the chief revealed a royal dietary practice that offers a glimpse into the deeper meaning of the festival.
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In many Ghanaian homes, yam can be an everyday delicacy whether boiled, fried, roasted or pounded into a steaming bowl of fufu.
But for Osabarima Enyinɛ Asiedu Okoo Ababio III, Chief of Larteh and Benkumhene of the Akuapim Traditional Area, eating yam is not an ordinary affair.
There are rules. There is waiting. And, most importantly, there is tradition.
As the Akuapim Traditional Area gathered to mark Akwasidae, one of the important traditional celebrations on the Akan calendar, the chief revealed a royal dietary practice that offers a glimpse into the deeper meaning of the festival.
“For so many weeks, I don’t eat yam,” Osabarima Ababio III told broadcaster Kafui Dey in an interview.
But Akwasidae changes everything.
The festival marks the occasion when the chief can finally sit down with his people and eat the year’s first yam.
“Today, I’m going to eat yam of my people,” he told Kafui Dey during the interview
According to the chief, the yam is prepared as fufu, pounded from freshly harvested yam and combined with various ingredients before being served as part of a communal feast.
It is not simply a meal.
It is a ritual.
A meal with meaning
According to Osabarima Ababio III, the significance of Akwasidae goes beyond the colourful display of chieftaincy, traditional regalia and communal celebration.
It is a moment when the chief comes together with his people.
“I eat food twice with my people in a year. The first one is today,” he explained.
The second comes during the Odwira Festival, when the chief again eats publicly with his people.
The tradition, he explained, creates a rare opportunity for the chief to leave the usual distance associated with royalty and share a meal with the community.
“A chief does not need to eat outside but these days, these two days have been earmarked for a chief to meet his people and eat with them,” he said.
That communal meal captures something at the heart of Akwasidae: the relationship between the stool, tradition and the people.
When the chief joins his people
The chief’s explanation also reveals why food occupies such an important place in traditional celebrations.
On Akwasidae, the first yam of the season is not merely food on a plate. It carries cultural meaning, connecting the harvest to the traditional authority and the wider community.
For the chief, therefore, waiting weeks to eat yam makes the eventual feast even more significant.
After prayers at the stool house, Osabarima Ababio III emerged to greet his people, describing the occasion as a significant day and a victorious moment.
The atmosphere was one of celebration, but beneath the pageantry was a simple act with profound meaning: a chief eating with his people.
And for a ruler who spends much of the year observing traditions that set the stool apart, Akwasidae offers one of those rare moments when the distinction between chief and community temporarily gives way to togetherness around one communal meal.
So, while the rest of us may reach for yam whenever the craving strikes, Osabarima Ababio III waits.
Weeks pass.
Then Akwasidae arrives.
And finally, the chief gets his fufu.
