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| Ariel Lee |
(By Ayesha Harruna Attah) - Slow-Cooking History
Fufu is boiled green plantains and
cassava, pounded in a wooden mortar to a distinct pum-pum-pum beat. Fufu, the way I like it, comes out a warm
yellow, with specks of black from the plantain seeds. But fufu on its own is
bland. Fufu is both food and utensil, and strong enough to scoop up soup.
Ghanaians eat it with palm soup, groundnut soup, a tomato soup called light
soup or ebunuebunu, green soup. Adventurous eaters go for a combination of all
four, known as nkatenkontobenkwan. But I am a purist. Ebunuebunu is my
favorite.
Fufu originated among the Akan, the
ethnic group that includes the Ashanti, Akwapim and Fanti people of what is
today southern Ghana and Ivory Coast. It journeyed across West Africa as
foofoo, foufou or foutou, and sailed across the Atlantic in the hearts of the
people who were uprooted and enslaved, even keeping its name in Cuba. Of
ebunuebunu, however, I am hard pressed to find derivatives. Its ingredients are
the leaf of the cocoyam plant; dried mudfish, tilapia or other river fish;
mushrooms; snails; onions; ginger; garlic; and sometimes grasscutter, the cane
rat, which my mother says “adds gamy flavor for those who like it.” The
ingredients are slow-cooked until they coalesce into a forest-green
broth that looks like witches’ brew and tastes like smoke and earth, with a
wholesomeness that lingers on the tongue.
