return of the prodigal foufou

The last time I ate at Bennachin was when it was still on Carrolton, and I and had read Things Fall Apart a few years earlier and, sadly, retained from it only a vague understanding of foufou (or fufu or foofoo). There may have been references to colonialism and massacre and anguish and the death of culture and stuff, but really, at fourteen, somehow, foufou is the only part of that novel that fell within my scope of comprehension.



So imagine my excitement when I recognized it on the menu at Bennachin. And then imagine my disappointment when it tasted like nothing very exciting at all. And then imagine my excitement when seven years later I realized that you have to eat it with something else. Like fish stew. (bangs the figurative no-duh gong).



Better yet, the stew part is exactly like gumbo. (double gong) Except orange and with tilapia.

The foufou is lovely, especially if you’re all about starchy textures. It’s like a gnocchi, but bigger and better. Or, perhaps more accurately, gnocchi is like fufu, but smaller and multitudinous and pretty okay. Depends on the sauce.