Farofa – Tasty Sawdust
When I was young I used to look at the map of the world and want to grab South America in my left hand, Africa in my right, and push them back together. It would be satisfying wouldn’t it? One of the legacies of the slave trade is that the people who now live so far apart – in the hollow of West Africa and the pointy nose of Brazil – have many cultural similarities: religion, music and, you guessed it, food.
Pangea – continental snuggling
In my teenage years I was lucky enough to visit Ghana several times. Ghana is situated just above the place where the ‘nose’ of Brazil hits Africa in the map shown above. It’s a great country and the Ghanaians are really lovely people. However, I’m sorry to say I don’t remember the food being so good – there was an incident when I was handed a bag of fried partridge heads and feet by my Dad’s driver. He was a sweet guy and watched with a happy, expectant smile as I chewed on a head and tried to make a face that said “Yummy!”.
Another West African food that I don’t miss is Foufou (also known as couscous, though nothing to do with the better known North African couscous). This is a bland, stodgy paste made from a cassava flour called Garri, and water and although foufou fulfills the main requirements of a food (provides sustenance, isn’t poisonous), I don’t remember any other redeeming qualities.
Over on the other side of the Atlantic, the descendants of West African slaves also eat cassava flour, though here they call it Farofa. Interestingly, as slaves were taken from Africa to South America, the cassava plant (native to Brazil) went in the other direction back in the 16th Century. Nigeria is now the world’s largest producer.
Cassava, a plant of many uses and even more names – Mandioca, Aipim, Macaxiera (Brazil), Yuca (most of countries of northern South America and Central America), Bankye (Ghana), Singkong (Indonesia), Balonghoy (Philipines) to name a few.
I first tried farofa in Maranhão, a state in the north east of Brazil. To my untrained eye it looked rather like the cous-cous of North Africa – yellow and granular. I was ravenous at the time and so heaped a huge pile onto my plate. I stuck a generous fork-full into my mouth and got a surprise. It was like I had a mouthful of sawdust! (6 months later a workmate seriously advised me “Never let anyone trick you into talking with a mouthful of farofa. It goes everywhere…”). It was very dry and after I had eventually managed to swallow it down, I realised it didn’t really taste of much. I tried it once again and then decided to consign it to the fairly small list of “foods I don’t like”.
When I got to Rio I happened to mention to my girlfriend that I thought farofa was terrible. She told me she loved it and determined to change my mind. She took me to a restaurant called Braseiro in Gávea, a wealthy neighbourhood in Zona Sul, the south zone of Rio. As we walked in she said “if you don’t like the farofa here, there’s no hope for you…”. Happily this was a turning point. The farofa in Braseira was moist and buttery and mixed with eggs. Eaten alongside a big, juicy steak, feijão and molho à campanha it was very good. And in a positive way, this turned out to be the thin end of the wedge – I found myself liking the standard farofa served in everyday bars and restaurants. And now, when I eat beans without farofa I feel that something important is missing.
Braseiro da Gávea – if there’s better farofa in town, I want to try it!
Ingredients
If you would like to make farofa for yourself, here is a simple and delicious recipe. As with Pão de Queijo, the only vaguely tricky ingredient is the cassava/manioc/yuca flour.
1 onion
200g manioc/yuca/cassava flour
2 tablespoons of butter/oil
2 eggs
Handful of chopped parsley
- Melt the butter in a medium-hot pan, then fry the onion.
- Add the egg and mix for a moment or two.
- As the egg scrambles, add in the flour and mix well to make sure everything is buttery.
- Cook for a minute or two then remove from the heat.
- Sprinkle over the parsley and season with salt.
Farofa de ovo – should look something like this.
Yum, sounds delicious!
LOL. I was doing a search for pangea maps and somehow landed on this page, but I was totally intrigued by the “foufou” history. I live in Italy doing an educational volunteer work (in English.) That means most of my students are from West Africa and when they oblige me to eat foufou, it’s not a pleasant experience for me. Apart from the taste, it feels like a glob of glue in my stomach for days after that just won’t move or digest! On the contrary it seems like everything I eat to try and push it down sticks to it instead, lol.
You’ve improved my outlook though, I hope one day I too can be won over by some amazingly prepared foufou…. :-)
Hey Rikki! Ha ha ha! I must admit, from my time in Ghana I remember foufou being just as you describe it! Not so good! :)
If you get the chance you should definitely try farofa though – it is also made from casava, but is totally different! I have come to adore it now! Thanks for dropping by!
You make it sound like you ate foufou on its own. Its not meant to be eaten like that. That’s probably why you didn’t like it. That’s like eating gnocchi on its own. Which would be nastier.
I find the redeeming factors of ghanian food to be in their stews. They are so flavourful and made to be paired with their doughs. One of my favourite cuisines in the world!