Funge

Angola's daily bread, cassava flour beaten into boiling water with a wooden stick until it is smooth, stiff, and elastic enough to pull clean away from the pot

Origin: Luanda, Angola

From the journey of Cassava.

Funge is what Angola eats, at nearly every meal, and it is the direct descendant of the first cassava to cross the Atlantic. Portuguese ships working the South Atlantic circuit between Bahia and Luanda brought the plant into the Kingdom of Kongo in the closing years of the sixteenth century, and they brought the knowledge of how to process it at the same time, which is why Angolan cassava cookery so closely resembles Brazilian. The flour is made from bombó: roots that have been peeled, soaked in water for three to five days until they soften and sour, then dried in the sun and milled. That retting both ferments and detoxifies, and it gives the flour a faint sourness that is part of the taste of the finished dish. The technique is the whole of it. Flour goes into boiling water and is beaten continuously with a long wooden stick, the pau de funge, against the side of the pot. It is hard physical work and it goes on for fifteen or twenty minutes, until the mass is completely smooth, glossy, and elastic and comes away from the pot in one piece. It is then turned out in a mound, or moulded in a wet bowl, and set at the centre of the table. It is never eaten alone and never with cutlery. A piece is torn off with the right hand, pressed into a shallow cup with the thumb, and used to scoop muamba de galinha, the palm-oil chicken stew, or calulu, or beans, or dried fish. Funge de bombó, made from cassava, is the coastal and northern version; inland the same dish is made from maize meal and is called funge de milho or pirão.

Ingredients

Base

  • 400 g cassava flour (farinha de bombó / fuba de mandioca)
  • 1.4 litres water

Seasoning

  • 1 tsp fine salt, optional

Method

  1. Mix 150 g of the cassava flour with 400 ml of the cold water in a bowl until completely smooth and lump free. Set aside.
  2. Bring the remaining 1 litre of water to a rolling boil in a heavy pan with the salt if using.
  3. Pour in the slurry, whisking, and let it come back to the boil. It will thicken into a loose, glossy porridge within two or three minutes.
  4. Now begin adding the remaining dry flour in small handfuls, beating hard with a stout wooden spoon after each addition until it is fully absorbed before the next goes in. Keep the heat low.
  5. Once all the flour is in, keep beating and folding the mass against the side of the pot over a low heat for a further ten to fifteen minutes.
  6. It is ready when it is completely smooth and glossy, pulls away from the sides of the pot in one mass, and holds its shape on the spoon.
  7. Turn it out onto a plate, or press it into a wetted bowl and invert it to give the traditional dome. Serve immediately, hot, with a stew alongside.

Notes

Cassava flour is sold by African and Brazilian grocers as fuba de mandioca, farinha de bombó, or simply cassava flour. It is the whole dried root, milled. Do not use tapioca starch. It will turn instantly into an inedible elastic glue. Nigerian lafun, Ghanaian kokonte, and Congolese fufu flour are all closely comparable products and make a very similar dish under different names. Leftover funge sets firm and can be sliced and fried the next day, which is a common household breakfast.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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