Talk:Fufu

Fufu-belly

I have not been able to find any reference to "fufu belly" on google. I have tried all the obvious spellings. Does anyone have a source for this? — Pekinensis 06:25, 28 July 2005 (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)