« Ashanti land | Main | An island of calm »

March 15, 2005

Fufu

Pronounced "foo-foo", it's the staple of many West African diets. Necessary comfort food for West Africans. Something to get used to for westerners traveling in this region.

Made from pounded cassava, white yam, corn, or any other starchy vegetable, fufu is served as a gelatinous mound swimming in sauce. You dip your fingers in (right hand only!), squeeze off a blob, swish it around in the sauce and eat.

The sauces are often very spicy and are usually dotted with hunks of chicken, fish, goat meat or bushmeat.

Here in Accra, many seem to prefer banku ("bank-oo") to fufu. Banku is similar to fufu, but made from ground corn that is somehow fermented and then cooked. It's served the same way as fufu, but they tell me it's lighter.

In cities like Accra and Kumasi, and even in small villages, bowls of fufu and banku are sold by vendors on almost every street corner and in local restaurants. A big bowl of fufu in a decent restaurant sells for 15,000 cedis, or $1.50. I'm sure it's much less in the street.

The thing about fufu is it seems to expand in your stomach after consumption. Couple it with a carbonated soft drink or beer, and it seems to swell exponentially in the belly.

Add that to a 100-plus degree day of sun, and it's a recipe for this "obruni" (foreigner) to spend the afternoon or evening horizontally inert.

Posted by Cathryn Poff at March 15, 2005 12:34 PM

Comments

Interesting - hey, is this fufu some kind of diet food possibility or not? If so, it should be a HIT in the USA for all those people who are dieting or contemplating dieting. Expanding tummies but thin bodies - hmmm, better rethink this!

Posted by: Anonymous at March 17, 2005 5:58 PM

Love your links :)

Posted by: Nikki at March 17, 2005 10:42 PM

Hey, have you had "red red" yet? It's a dish made with red beans and rice and I believe some sort of "red" meat. Good stuff, as I recall, thought it's been 15 years..... And Ghana's Star beer is a treat--reminds me of Carlsburg beer. Enjoy your adventures!

Posted by: casey at April 4, 2005 4:18 PM