Garri is a foodstuff made from cassava. The cassava is peeled, grated, dried and fried. That's it.
This does not do justice to what a wonderful substance this thing is.
Sometimes a little palm oil is added to it while frying. This gives it a pale yellow color. If no oil is added, it is dull white.
Depending on how it is made, it can have a rather tangy, sour taste or it can be bland and tasteless. The bland one is better for making fufu while the tangy one is better for soaking or eating dry.
While it is made in many parts of the south, the most famous one is called Ijebu garri, made by the Ijebu Yoruba in the Southwest. It is a tangy, yellow garri.
If soaked in hot water, it swells into a sort of soft mash (called eba or fufu) which is eaten with soup or stew.
It can be soaked with cold water and sugar and eaten alone or garnished with fried groundnuts, or kulikuli (a fried cake made from residue of groundnuts that have been pressed for oil). Milk and/or milo (or any powdered chocolate) can be added to make it more luxurious.
It is more popular in the south of Nigeria but it is eaten all over the country.
It is sometimes seen as a poor man's food here especially if soaked in cold water. But for those of us who we went to cosmopolitan secondary schools, it was a life saver in school and we sometimes eat it now when we want something filling that is not a fuss to prepare.
In secondary school, we also ate it dry. Mixed with sugar and the other things. Because it is dry and absorbs a lot of water, one cannot eat too much of it in that manner. There was a senior student who punished some boys by giving them a large pot of dry garri and ordering them to finish it. I think they both fell ill afterwards.
Garri is probably a Hausa word because the language uses the word to describe any powdery stuff. Or perhaps the Hausa began to use the name of the foodstuff to refer to things that look like it.
Cassava was introduced to us by Europeans, after their discovery of the Americas. Thumbs up for trade.