20
May
In Paris, my day begins with a baguette. Yes, I eat an entire baguette. I’m hungry!
Lunch varies, depending on whether I am traveling on the metro, sightseeing or just furiously writing in the sun; it could just be a bar of chocolate.
The evening meal is typically Congolese: smoked fish slowly cooked outside on a grill, Pondu (or Kaleji in Tshiluba), which is basically cassava leaves cooked in tomato sauce, roasted caterpillars, etc. The meal would not be complete, however, without fufu.
What is fufu? you ask.
It is hot dough, made with hot water and a variety of flour. In Paris, my cousin Mbuyi makes fufu with semolina flour. Other people make fufu with cassava flour, plantain flour or even potato flour.
Fufu is your carb, your starch. It is the base of the meal; the vegetables and the meat or fish are there to accompany fufu (not the other way around).
If you ask any Luba elders, including my Dad who lives in Montreal… “have you eaten?”
They will tell you, “Today I have not eaten,” if they did not eat fufu that day.
Yours truly here must admit that, although fufu is an acquired taste, you sure can get hooked on it. Fufu is life.