Fufu

Buddha shaped his Nigerian course around fufu — the West and Central African staple starch that's eaten with stews. Traditionally made by boiling and pounding starchy tubers (cassava, yam, plantain) into a smooth, stretchy, dough-like mass, then torn off in small pieces by hand, dimpled with the thumb, and used to scoop up sauce. Texture is the point: it should be soft enough to indent but cohesive enough not to dissolve in the stew. Modern home cooks often use instant fufu flour (cassava, plantain or yam) reconstituted with hot water and stirred hard for several minutes. Fufu is swallowed in small lumps, not chewed.