Fufu Explained

Seeing that fufu is such a main part of my life and diet here, I have decided to explain it in full. It is the staple food here in the South West. It is eaten with any and all soups that people prepare. If you ask someone what their favorite food is, 90% chance they’ll answer “fufu.” They won’t even qualify a soup or something to go with it. It’s just a gooey ball of starch with a bit of a twang, but people here love it, and I must admit, I’ve become rather fond of it as well.

Making fufu is one of the most laborious, most intensive, most ridiculous endeavors that I have ever seen. The process lasts over 6 days. That’s right, over 6 days to prepare just one portion of your meal. Talk about commitment. The women here do it around the clock so that their families have a continuous supply of fufu.

First, you harvest the cassava plant. These plants take 2 years to mature (again, see previous comments about commitment). They have to harvest roughly 8 square feet of land to produce one vat. Cassava is a root, and is similar to other tubers. It is elongated like a yam, with a thick brown skin and a white flesh. This is what will eventually become fufu. To start the process, you clean and peel the cassava. Then you soak it in water for 3 days. It sits in a giant pot, near the fire during those days. From time to time you stir the contents of the pot and mush the cassava. 

After three days you strain the remaining chucky cassava from the cassava water. You throw out the leftover root and keep the starchy water. You put this strained mixture into bags and again let it sit for 3 days. Then you strain the excess water out of the bag and keep a gooey cassava paste. This is then pounded and it becomes a crumbly, clotted dough. To prepare this, you mix it with water over the fire. You then remove it from the fire and pound it, adding water as needed. 

Finally, it is ready to be molded into balls. You finally have your ball of fufu, ready to eat. One batch lasts about a week or two, depending on how often you substitute other starches for your meal.