Smoke-dried skipjack, split, clamped between bamboo, and sold at every Sunday market in North Sulawesi. Where to buy good ones, and how to spot a bad one.
Cakalang fufu is a Minahasan staple that has, like a lot of North Sulawesi food, gone nowhere outside the region in any quantity. A whole skipjack tuna is gutted, split butterfly-flat, clamped between two split bamboo battens lashed at each end, and hot-smoked for four to six hours over a wood fire of coconut shell and dried mango leaf. The result keeps for a week without refrigeration and a month in a cool kitchen. The Sunday markets across North Sulawesi sell it by the bamboo-clamped fish, and a household will go through one a week. This is a short guide to where to buy a good cakalang fufu in Manado, how to spot a bad one, and what a Minahasan kitchen does with it once it's home.
What you're buying
A finished cakalang fufu is a butterfly-split skipjack — usually 30 to 45 cm long — held flat between two narrow bamboo battens about a centimetre thick. The flesh is dark amber-brown from the smoke; the skin is darker and slightly papery. The fish has been smoked enough to be cooked through and partially dehydrated, but it is not dried fish in the ikan asin sense — it remains tender and the flesh flakes wet, not powdery.
A good cakalang fufu has three signs. First, the smoke smell is round and slightly sweet — coconut shell, not generic woodsmoke. Second, the bamboo battens are tight against the fish; there is no give when you press down on the flesh. Third, the surface is matte, not glossy; gloss means oil has been added during smoking, which is a shortcut that softens the keeping.
A bad cakalang fufu smells like a fish that was already turning when it went into the smoker. It will have a thin layer of bright oil pooled at the bottom of the bamboo clamp. Walk away.
Where to buy it
The Manado market hierarchy for cakalang fufu, in working order:
Pasar Bersehati, central Manado. The big city market, Tuesday-Friday-Sunday peaks. The cakalang fufu stalls cluster near the southern end, by the bus drop-off. Get there before 09:00; the best fish are gone by 10:00. Price in 2026: €3–€4.50 for a clamped fish, depending on size.
Pasar Tomohon. The famous Saturday market in the hills above Manado. The fufu stalls are at the back, past the produce sections, and the prices are slightly higher than Bersehati but the smoking is generally done locally and the freshness window is shorter. Worth it if you're in Tomohon anyway for the market.
Pasar Bahu, Manado. The neighbourhood market near the airport. Smaller selection, but the same suppliers in many cases. Convenient if you're flying out and want a fish for home.
Direct from a smokehouse. Several Minahasan villages — Kema, Aer Madidi, the smaller ones along the coast east of Manado — have working smokehouses you can buy from at source. The smokehouses do not have signs; ask at any village shop and someone will walk you there. The price is the same as the market, but the fish is fresher and you can specify the size.
A note on the price range: a small fufu (under 30 cm) is for snack-eating; a household-sized one is 35–40 cm; the largest, 45+ cm, is for a feast or a Sunday family lunch. The price scales roughly linearly.
What a kitchen does with it
The standard Minahasan preparation is cakalang fufu rica-rica: the smoked flesh is flaked off the bone, sautéed in a paste of red bird's-eye chili, shallot, garlic, and ginger, finished with a squeeze of jeruk nipis (calamansi). Eaten with white rice and a green vegetable, usually bunga pepaya (papaya flowers) or kangkung. It takes fifteen minutes from cold fish to plate.
The second preparation is cakalang fufu suwir — flaked and salted as a topping for rice noodle soup or for bubur Manado, the Minahasan congee with pumpkin, corn, and greens. Bubur Manado without fufu is not bubur Manado.
The third use is the breakfast use: a chunk of fufu, warmed briefly over the fire, eaten with white rice and dabu-dabu (Minahasan raw chili relish). This is the way an older Manado household will eat a Sunday morning before church.
Where to buy cakalang fufu in Manado? Pasar Bersehati (central Manado) is the main market for cakalang fufu — go before 09:00 for the best fish. Pasar Tomohon (Saturdays only, in the hills) and Pasar Bahu (near the airport) are good alternatives. Direct village-smokehouse purchase east of Manado at Kema or Aer Madidi gets you the freshest fish at market price. A whole bamboo-clamped fish runs €3–€4.50 in 2026.
Travelling with it
A cakalang fufu travels fine in a domestic Indonesian flight, in your check-in bag, wrapped in newspaper and a plastic bag for the smell. It will not survive an international flight without some serious bagging — the smell is significant and the customs questions are tedious.
For visitors who want to take the taste home rather than the fish: the smaller Minahasan provisions shops near the airport sell vacuum-packed cakalang fufu suwir, the pre-flaked version, in 200-gram bags. The product is meaningfully worse than fresh — the texture is drier and the smoke has flattened — but it survives a long trip and gives a kitchen at home a working ingredient for the rica-rica preparation.
What's changed
Two things in the last five years. First, the price has risen faster than inflation; skipjack stocks in the Sulawesi Sea are under pressure and the wholesale fish price is up. Second, several of the Tomohon smokehouses have moved to coconut-husk briquette fuel instead of whole coconut shells, which is more efficient but produces a slightly less round smoke profile. Older eaters notice; younger ones don't.
