Talk:Fufu

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I just came to edit this and check for grammer mistakes bye:). Fufu is so delicious! with soup! mmm, I miss it. It's an acquired taste. It's not how the food looks it's how it tastes. African food has lots of nutrients. We use lots of veggies, carbs, protein, oils, and fruits. A well-balanced diet accompanied by lots of walking even with taxis, buses, and cars available keeps the obesity rate down. We just eat till we are full serving size is not something Africans watch carefully. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.74.201.131 (talk) 13:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed refs to couscous

I removed this reference from the opening paragraph and also the See also link to couscous:

In French-speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa, fufu is sometimes called cous-cous, not to be confused with the Moroccan dish Couscous.

Fufu and couscous are two entirely different dishes, different in way of cooking, texture and the usual ingredient. (Couscous in the West African Sahel is somewhat different than that of the Maghreb, but cooked and eaten basically the same way.)--A12n (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

My removal of this reference was reverted with the note that fufu is indeed called couscous in Cameroon. I modified the restored version to reflect this. I spent 11 years in Francophone West Africa and never ever heard fufu and couscous used to describe the same thing. Could this then be a local variant term in Cameroon or perhaps more broadly in Central Africa?--A12n (talk) 03:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to get a source for the use of "couscous" to mean "fufu" in Cameroon this weekend. I suspect the term is not reserved to Cameroon; perhaps it is Central African? I'm having trouble finding easily understandable references to what is and is not called couscous in West Africa, but this passage, from the Handbook of Cereal Science and Technology, p. 165, seems to refer to the subject of this article:

Couscous is a favorite product in West Africa that is made from sorghum, millet, and maize. It is made by agglomerating flour with water, steaming the covered flour, mixing and sizing the partially cooked flour, and addition of mucilaginous material during final steaming. Sometimes the couscous is dried and used as a convenience food.

I'm not sure if this is the same food, though. — Amcaja (talk) 05:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The quote you have sounds like the Sahelian version of couscous (thanks for that by the way). On the coast of West Africa there are two main kinds of dishes in which the starch is formed into a lump: fufu, pounded yams (cocoyams, taro, plantain); and a "thickened porridge" (in French called pâte) made from stirring a flour (corn, millet, sorghum) and water mixture in a pot over a fire. The traditional couscous further north is basically made from steaming the flour more or less as described above, in a perforated pot over another one with boiling water. I think that the articles dealing with foods on the African continent - including these - could use some focused revisions. The "thickened porridge" is I think similar to what is described in the ugali and sadza articles, and perhaps there should be a meta-article describing these and others. The fufu article doesn't need to describe them other than to explain the difference. The fufu article could use a list of names in various languages and regions, including of the terms you will be looking into.--A12n 05:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, here are a few more:

• "In Francophone sub-Saharan Africa, couscous is a boiled ball of starch that can be made from a variety of grains or tubers: rice, cassava, millet, sorghum, corn, etc. In Anglophone regions this is called foufou. Francophone Cameroonians call the semolina-style North African couscous couscous algerien to distinguish it from their own." This is from Ignatowski, Clare A. (2006). Journey of Song: Public Life and Morality in Cameroon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 206, note 8. ISBN 0253217946. Again, however, the country under study is Cameroon.
• "Le maïs est cultivé essentiellement au Katanga et au Kasaï où il fait partie de l'alimentation de base, en bouillie, couscous ou foufou, ainsi que dans la fabrication de la bière." This is from Congo: République démocratique. Petit Futé, p. 93. ISBN 2746914123. It's a travel guide, and it's unclear whether the author (unnamed) is equating the two terms or merely listing two products of maize.
• "Les pauvres . . . mangent aussi habituellement des ignames, des bananes et une espèce de couscous appelée en achanti foufou." This from Tardieu, Amédée, S. Chérubini, and Noel Desvergers (1847). Sénégambie et Guinée, Nubie, Abyssinie. Paris: Imprimeurs-libraires de l'Institut de France, p. 258.
• "Foufou: Sorte de purée d'igname ou de banane plantain. Le féculent est mis à cuire dans une marmite d'eau bouillante salée, avec de la tomate, du piment, de l'huile de palme, de la viande, puis écrasé." This from Chaléard, Jean-Louis (1996). Temps des villes, temps des vivres: l'essor du vivrier marchand en Côte d'Ivoire. Karthala Editions, p. 645. ISBN 782865376353. Notable because the author does not equate fufu and couscous.

At any rate, there seems to be enough confusion that the removal of the blanket statement that was in the article (claiming that couscous is the Francophone word for fufu) seems to have been well warranted, but perhaps the Cameroon-exclusivism for the dual terminology should be weakened somewhat to say that couscous is used in other Francophone regions as well? — Amcaja (talk) 00:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this - I've learned something but also have more questions (in general). I wonder if part of what is happening is that the vocabulary in English and French is used very loosely to cover categories that are more clear in local languages. The issue of "pâte" in French or "thickened (or stiff) porridge" in English are cases in point - European languages don't have a good word for it that doesn't already have a somewhat different meaning. (On the other hand there are some very clear terms for it in Bambara and Fulfulde; local names for local foods can be quite precise.) Maybe "couscous" in this usage is another inexact borrowing. How any of it gets mixed up with fufu is another question. I always understood that fufu passed by a mortar - that is the yam or whatever was boiled in chunks and then pounded (these days there are commercial powders made from yams or cocoyams but that's another issue). It was, at least in Togo, eaten with different kinds of sauces than the "pâte" made from grain flour. In any event both of those held together in a way that is hard to equate with couscous which is loose. Anyway, two suggestions:

• For this article a paragraph discussing nomenclature based on the above may be in order, along the lines you suggest, but with more detail.
• A decision may be necessary how to disambiguate all these types of cooking starch-based staples in the region, and how to present names for them.
• If it's okay I'll reframe the issue to ask on H-Africa (an the H-Net list), to see if anyone has researched why the names are so variable and how to make sense out of it all. --A12n 01:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would be nice to get some more feedback. I'm confident about the Cameroonian terminology, since it's in the sources and matches my own experience, but the other regions and the nomenclature in them would be best handled as you suggest. — Amcaja (talk) 02:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Polenta

Is polenta a good English translation for fufu?--Sonjaaa (talk) 06:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No, not really. There's no need for any translation, since fufu is the word used by English-speaking people in Nigeria, Cameroon, and other Anglophone African countries. — Dulcem (talk) 06:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Re-wording existing reference?

[Pasted this from page --Jammoe (talk) 03:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)]

I'd like to change one sentence to better reflect the facts a the citation listed. Do I just change the sentence and click save? Or do I need to do something specific so that it is approved like re-list the reference?

Thanks so much

Sunshineyy (talk) 17:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Just be bold and make your edit and click save, but remember to explain your edit in the edit summary. – ukexpat (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

ummm

why is the first line

"Fufu, (variants of the name include fufu, fufu, fufu)"

all the 'variants' are the same —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.154.139.28 (talk) 09:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Was the work of a vandal. Now corrected. Ezeu (talk) 19:43, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

cocoyam

Could someone who knows please disambiguate cocoyam in this article? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 05:06, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Origin

This chapter needs rewriting! sam. 11:06, 2 March 2011 (GMT)

The word 'fufu' is not specific to Asante Twi but is common throughout the Akan group of languages (Asante, Akuapem, Fante, ..). In Akuapem it would probably be spelt 'fufu', whereas in Asante I think 'fufuo', or 'fufuw', is more likely to reflect the diphthong. I have never seen a final 'p' silent or otherwise. I am not convinced that there is a double etymology. To pound fufu would be 'wɔw fufu'. If 'fu-fu' is now ever used to mean 'to pound', it seems more likely that it has been derived from the food name, and not vice versa, in the same way that we might say 'to cream'. I am open to correction from an expert, but if these comments are not challenged I will change the text to reflect the above in about a month's time. EJT (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC) Paragraph removed. EJT (talk) 17:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Fufu in Angola

Fufu is also eaten in Angola and is considered the national food in the country. Funge or Fungi, as it is usually called in Angola comes in two different forms, maize and manioc. While there is a third type of funge, a mixture between both types, this is not so popular and Angola's usually stick to their preferential type, maize or manioc, which is often relates to the region they are originally from. The maize type of funge presents itself in either a yellow or white color, while the manioc type presents itself in a translucent grey and is sticky in its nature. Manku15 (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)Marcelo

Country bias

It appears that whoever is from Ghana has written about how everyone accepts that fufu is a dish from Ghana .... and people from Guinea have declared that it is a dish from Guinea ... and that my friend's uncle was from the Akan tribe - and he invented it. Closer to the truth would be to say that 1. it is an introduced food which replaced a lot of indigenous, and often more nutritious, foodstuffs, such as yams, and was probably imposed by colonial overlords so that they could exploit the workforce in a contained setting rather that letting them do traditional food gathering; and, 2. that it is eaten in a great many countries in Africa - west, central and south ... not just the places that the editor knows. Francis Hannaway (talk) 07:33, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's pretty common for editors to claim foods as a point of national pride. Unfortunately, it's almost always without any sources. The colonial history perspective would be a fantastic addition to the article, do you have any sources? Grayfell (talk) 08:47, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Traditional Preparation in Ghana and Nigeria

As a current resident in Ghana, who have witnessed the preparation of fufu in many homes across tribes, I have never seen any method of preparation that involves flour of either cassava or plantain. The reference cited, describes the history of cassava in Africa, and does not make any reference to fufu, or other related local dishes. The common, traditional method of preparing fufu, is by pounding varying portions of boiled cassava and unripe matured plantain. The portion of plantain is less that the cassava. Emmausgamer (talk) 18:09, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Grid to make it clear

It seems that any stodgy mess can be called fufu. In reality, it is a different food in different countries. It is made from different ingredients and even has differing names. Given that they are all high-carb belly fillers, a grid could distinguish them into main ingredients. Some are made from cassava (whether boiled, ground, or fermented), others from plantain bananas, and others from several other grains. Perhaps that should be the main grouping. When it comes to nutrition, this article is very confident that all the various fufus have the same nutritional values, regardless of what they're made from. And of course, it's all very positive! Whereas, cassava carries definite health risks. It's a clumsy article, with several contradictions. Francis Hannaway (talk) 18:00, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Fufu made from yams

I lived in Ghana for a couple of years in the early 1980's, and I remember fufu as being made by pounding boiled yams (the big, white fleshed yams, not sweet potatoes) in a big wooden mortar with long poles. It was quite a performance sometimes with two women pounding and a third reaching in to turn the dough between the strokes with her hand and everything timed so she didn't get her fingers smashed. My impression was that, in northern Ghana, this was regarded as real fufu, and variants using cassava and plantain were pale imitations. I do not trust my long-ago memory enough to put this in the article, but can someone who knows more about it comment? 45.177.17.134 (talk) 12:46, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

You must be referring to cassavas (that's what they are called in Ghana). And I agree, pounding fufu in Ghana is such an involving activity! Kwadwo O (talk) 08:07, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The Article is a biased confused ignorant childish mess

First the references to ghana, we shouldn't deceive ourselves this is older than our fake borders. If a ghanian says fufu, we should understand that he is referring to ghanaian fufu, likewise others. This article should only refer to cultures that literally call it fufu. In nigeria it is called fufu by ibibio, efik, oron and other tribes in the south south region. Akpu (as called by igbos in the south east) is almost a different dish, the cassava is fermented for longer, loses its white colour and gains a darker look. It's almost comedic watching a bunch of over-colonized brothers attempt dumb nationailsm SmartAfricanBoy (talk) 21:20, 2 April 2024 (UTC)