Making fufu is hard work. The cassava and plantain are boiled, then put into a tall wooden bowl called a mortar. One person pounds the food with a big wooden pestle, while another quickly turns and folds the dough between strikes. The pounders have to be perfectly in time - the turner needs their hand to be out of the way each time the pestle comes down.
After about half an hour of pounding, the dough is smooth, stretchy and shiny - a bit like a pale, soft pillow. It is then scooped into bowls. Many Ghanaian families now use machines or food processors to do the same job in minutes, but in many homes the wooden mortar still gets a regular workout.
Fufu is eaten with soup - and there are many kinds. Light soup is tomato-based, full of meat or fish and bright with spices. Groundnut soup is made from peanuts, creamy and rich. Palmnut soup is dark red and deep in flavour. You break off a piece of fufu, dip it into the soup, and swallow it - usually without chewing.
Fufu is a food that brings families together. The pounding takes more than one person. The cooking takes time. Eating fufu is unhurried - you sit, you talk, you laugh, you dip. Many Ghanaians say a Sunday lunch isn't really Sunday lunch without fufu.