Let me show you Kpakpo Shito

Green pepper sauce is the most popular hot sauce in Ghana, and right I can say it had officially dethroned the king, the classic black pepper shito.

If you have lived in Ghana or especially Accra your entire life, then you have most definitely come across some form of this sauce. From the types that are freshly ground to the commercial types. They all have one thing in common, kpakpo shito is used in there. For those that don't even know what it is, kpakpo shito is a pepper variety that is uniquely West African. They are small, crunchy and very aromatic. Of course, you can substitute with any green chili that you have, but believe when I tell you it will definitely not be the same.

I don't dispute the fact that peppers of any sort are not originally from the African continent, but the variety that is used in shito gives you a certain level of taste and fragrance that is uniquely African. Is there anyone with seeds for kpakpo shito and others like it? I'll ask my fellow Ghanaians because personally I've been looking for some but I barely go out so I can't get some in my neighborhood.

I can eat shito with fish and a lot of other things, but for a very long time, I didn’t know what shito really was. As time goes on, you learn all sorts of things. The core ingredients are onions, garlic, ginger, chili peppers, dried fish and oil.

Ghanaian people love shito, but I believe it could gain popularity abroad if the name was made less Ghanaian for the English speakers. But anyways it's a great name on its own. But someone could take it as an opportunity to rebrand it with a more English name and make big sales in America.