A Bronx chef shares a recipe close to her heart

WNYC News

Food has a way of bringing back memories as the holidays approach WNYC's community partnerships desk is asking New Yorkers to share stories about recipes that mean something special to them. Yipin Benon lives in the Bronx. She's a cooking instructor with the League of Kitchens.

The transcript of Yipin Benon's story has been lightly edited for clarity.

I live in the Bronx. I'm from Burkina Faso, West Africa. The recipe that touched my heart most is fufu pound yam.

So we boil the yam and we pound the yam and then we cook a different stew to eat with that. So, it can be peanut butter stew, it can be light pepper soup. The difference of making fufu here and making it home is like you don't sweat when you are in America. You eat your fufu, you are not tired, you really enjoy it.

Fufu is easier to make in America because here we have yam powder to make it, so you just boil water and do the texture you want, but back home in my village, Léo, we have to buy the yam, peel it, boil it, and then pound it. The pounding part I don't like. I will tell you the truth, because you're gonna be pounding it for 30 minutes at least. And then sometimes you can have like kind of pimple in your hand. It's not easy, but then when you start eating it's rewarding. I love it, and my mom also love it. Whenever I cook it in America here, I send her a picture of my food the plate, and she say, "Oh, wow, I'll cook it tomorrow," because it's already late in Burkina Faso and then she go to the market, she bought the yam, she cook it, and she say, "I cook it today, I'm eating it right now."

I first started to cook very young, around seven- to eight-year-old. I was initiated how to cook by being around when my mama was cooking, they will send you to go to get the salt, get this and so you observe, and you learn.

Food is everything. Whatever you eat determines your health. We believe in cooking ourself, the food we're eating, we know what we put inside is more safe for me. When you cook, and you cook with love, you cook with passion, that's all that matters for me. Like, I like it, and when I cook and I see people eating, enjoying it, it just makes me happy.