Skip to main content

Fufu

No, not the rabbit walking through the forest. Food. There are different types of fufu, depending on what it's made from. (As far as I know, this staple carbohydrate comes in cocoyam and corn varieties.) I've had the very similar Congo-style luku-made with cassava, I believe-in Canada, and now I've had South West Province Cameroon-style fufu in the village.

Made from a particular type of cocoyam, the purplish-skinned tuber is peeled and boiled like a potato then placed in a large mortar where it is pounded to a greyish-white gooey paste. Johannes, the Scotts' cook, made it today and invited us all to participate in the pounding. Kenneth gleefully mashed up the cocoyams, then I got a turn at pounding the now very sticky mush. It looks like mashed potatoes, but gives a great deal more resistance. With the mortar on the floor, I sat on a chair, using my feet to keep it steady while battering the cocoyams into submission.

I've always been one to be turned off by texture, regardless of whether the taste was otherwise appealing or not, but forewarned is forearmed, so as with my previous experience with luku, I found it really wasn't bad at all once I was prepared to eat sticky, gooey lumps. The small mountain heaped on the serving dish bore a remarkable resemblance to cooked brains, in my humble opinion. Not something I'll be requesting for lunch but not something I'll dread either.

By itself, of course, it would be highly unpleasant, but as we scooped it up with our hands we dipped it into a delectable peanut sauce, which covers a multitude of sins. I believe njama-njama is another option with fufu - it's cooked dark green leaves, vaguely reminiscent of spinach.

Labels:

Comments

lasselanta said…
What kind of sauce do you eat with luku?

"Water fufu" sounds similar; it's made with cassava too. Forewarned is forearmed: If you eat it with okra sauce then you don't have to chew it...
September 12, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Rebs said…
luku is eaten with similar sauces - a spinach-like one that I suspect is the exact same thing, called ndundu (?) or saka-saka. or with a meat sauce. anything with lots of palm oil.
karla, are you experiencing a lot of palm oil? there's really nothing like it - it's possibly the heaviest oil on the face of the planet.
September 13, 2007 at 12:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our pensions for ICE? Stop it now!

A campaign from LeadNow with a few spicy sentences from me. The CPP is funded by the wages of 22 million people across the country, LeadNow says, and the Investment Board has a responsibility to ensure those savings are not used in ways people fundamentally reject. Dear Mr. John Graham, CEO of CPPIB, and CPPIB board members, I am writing as a contributor to the Canada Pension Plan—one of millions of people whose wages fund this plan and whose future depends on it. This is our CPP, and it must answer to us. I am horrified that CPP investments include companies linked to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In effect, the people who pay into CPP are having their own money used to help fund Trump-era immigration enforcement and the harms associated with it. Canadians are appalled by the actions of ICE. What a betrayal you would use our own money to fund these bullies violating human rights.  CPP is not abstract capital—it is our deferred wages. Contributors should not ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keep Israeli warmongers out

Dear Mr Carney After promising to follow international law and arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, you lost your nerve and failed to deny him passage through Canadian airspace.  However, you finally spoke up after Minister Ben Gvir's egregious display of sadism. Now you have another chance to keep that backbone tall, standing against genocide, by preventing the representatives of Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries from attending CANSEC in Ottawa on May 27 – 28, 2026.  This request was recently brought to your attention by ICJP and Just Peace Advocates. In their request, they provided significant evidence in support of our position that entry ought to be denied under section 35(1) of the IRPA, on the basis of the companies’ ongoing cooperation with the Israeli military during its alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Elbit is Israel's largest private defence contractor. Its finan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bread not bombs

Yesterday, I saw a post from a Dutch antiwar organization: Geen Bommen maar bomen. “Not bombs; trees instead.” I love it.  Today, I saw a campaign from MCC: “bread, not bombs.” So I wrote adapted their letter to write to the prime minister et al.: Sure, money is important, but even more crucial is air to breathe and food to eat.  War makes money for a tiny fragment of human population, but for the vast majority, war means displacement, loss, deprivation and at worst death. Even for those far away from war, like here in Canada, every bomb that drops leaves not only a crater in some distant soil but also further deepens the desperate carbon crisis we are in, which will exact its retribution faster and faster in wildfires, droughts and floods.  That is why I am writing to you today.  Canadians did not vote for war in the 2025 election.  War does not lead to security.  How could the hunger, displacement, and worsening impacts of climate change lead to sec...
Post a Comment
Read more