"Today is the day."

I greeted the woman at my door with a happy, “Madame Salome, you are welcome!”

I had invited her over so she could teach me how to make southern-style fufu. And, no, that doesn’t include hot sauce, fried chicken, or salsa. It is the difference between the pounded yam fufu of the north and a mixture of pounded cassava and plantain as it is made in the south. Fufu is a heavy, filling meal of the vegetables being thoroughly pounded with a mortar and pestle until their consistency is that of (very) stiff mashed potatoes with elasticity similar to bread dough. There is no salt or seasoning in fufu, so it is always eaten with a flavorful soup. The fufu, mounded into a round, doughy island, dominates the bowl while soup floods the edges and invites all to dig in. Literally. We eat it with our hands, cutting off pieces of the fufu with our fingers then dipping them into the soup.

John and I love fufu and I imagined a happy morning working together with Salome (SAH-loh-may) and learning the art well enough to repeat it for our family in the future.  

But things didn’t run as smoothly as they did in my imagination.  Salome went to the mortar where I had piled my cassava and plantain. “You have only two cassava?” she asked. I could see light amusement dance in her eyes and threaten at the corners of her mouth.

“Yes.”

“These two small, small ones?”

“Yes.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize I had guessed poorly on the amount of cassava. Salome lost the battle with her amusement and began grinning broadly.

“Do you generally use more cassava than plantain when you pound fufu?” I asked for future reference.

“Yes.” She gave a quick nod, still grinning at the cassava and the equal portion of plantain lying beside it.

I got the uncomfortable feeling of having made a mistake. It has been a while since I have been the newbie making a fool of myself out of little things that “everyone” knows how to do. Immediately it took me back to the days of living in a northern village where I was laughed at on a regular basis until I learned the ways of my village friends who had only one right way of sweeping their compound or cutting up a chicken or washing a garment. The small cassava staring up at me now and Salome’s undisguised amusement made me feel like a child again and one who knows very little.

Part of the problem was that I knew the cassava were small, but I had done the math while standing at the market stall. “I looked at the size of this cassava and thought it was big enough to feed Mr. John and I looked at this other one and saw it was enough for me and the children. So if we add the plantain, I think we will have plenty of fufu.”

That was very true but even the small quantity was a laughing matter for Salome. Africans can eat double the portions of these heavy local food as we Americans so even that explanation wasn’t going to expel her amusement.

Salome sat on a low stool and started to peel the cassava and plantain. Her grin stayed wide.

When the vegetables were on the stove to boil, Salome turned to me. “Shall we make light soup?” I wanted her to make it like she would make it for her own family, but another glitch was just ahead.  

“Okay, so which meat do you have?”

My spirits drooped. With Salome barely over the humor of my small portions, I hated to break it to her that I didn’t have meat. I dearly wished I had thought through this scenario while at market and purchased a smoked fish or a hunk of beef. But I hadn’t. All I had was sardines and they seemed like a poor excuse for meat in light of Salome's expectations.

Salome’s amused look returned. “We can do it with no meat,” I suggested lamely and started peeling an onion.

In the middle of pressing a garlic clove, I suddenly remembered that I was out of Maggi (bouillon cubes), a necessity for soup. When I told Salome, she stopped short. This cooking experience wasn’t turning out like she imagined either, what with my small cassava, meatless light soup, and now no Maggi as well. I felt she almost pitied me as she said matter-of-factly, “Then today is the day.” She squared her shoulders as though she was going to make the most of it and pitched in to help me. 

I assume she meant 'today is the day things go wrong' and felt that way myself when I quickly ran to a tiny shop up the street for bouillon --and the banana bread I was baking nearly burnt in my absence. 

When we were on the porch pounding the fufu until my arms felt like jelly and blisters formed (and I had to call John to take over for me, much to Salome’s amusement), the soup on the stove boiled over, creating a gigantic mess across stove, kettle, and counter.

And then the lights went off.

And then our child who hates mashed potatoes and anything remotely close to that texture had a rough time with our hard-earned lunch.

“Today is the day,” yes, but tomorrow is another. And I’m imagining a happy day because Salome is coming back and is bringing her 5-year-old to play with Tyler. Maybe that means Tyler will finally have a friend. 

John pounding fufu while Salome turns the 'dough'