Purple Passion Fruit (Passiflora edulis) is native to southern Brazil but is grown in many subtropical countries. The fruit is egg-shaped, but about
three times the size of an egg. It has a thick dark red skin, which starts out smooth but becomes wrinkly as the fruit ripens. Cut through the rind and
you will find a bright yellow liquid pulp full of dark greenish seeds, which are edible. You can scoop the pulp right out of the rind, strain it if desired,
and use it in a variety of recipes. You will need 4 passion fruits to get about 1/4 cup of strained pulp. The flavour is sweet and yet tart, citrussy with
a hint of guava, heady and aromatic. If you are looking for an exotic twist to a recipe, try passion fruit!
Spanish priests in the 17th century named this plant, because it's striking flowers reminded them of the passion of the Christ. It was cultivated by the
Incas and the Aztecs. There are at least 50 different varieties, or more. Passion fruits are very nutritious, a high fiber source of Vitamins A and C,
and potassium. However stay away from passion fruit flowers, as they
contain cyanide! Some say that after eating a passion fruit you will fall in love with the next person with whom you make eye contact. You can purchase a
case of passion fruit (in season) from White Dove Farm in Santa Paula, CA. If you're
wondering how to use your fresh passion fruit, try some of these recipes.
Avocado: (Persia gratissima) This fruit is about the size
and shape of a pear, and often called avocado pear. The dark green skin,
which can be bumpy or smooth, covers a soft, light green, buttery flesh.
A hard, oval pit is in the center of the fruit.
Baobab: (Adansonia digitata)The dried, powdered
leaves of this enormous tree, which the Hausa call kuka, are added to soups and stews
to give them a slippery texture similar to okra. The fruit of the tree is a
large oval, 10 to 12 inches long. It is downy on the outside, with a woody
shell covering compartments filled with fibrous pulp. It is sometimes called
monkey bread. Powdered baobab may be found in African food stores, or by mail
order.
Breadfruit: (Artocarpus communis) This round, bright green
fruit grows on a large tree. It is about 8 inches in diameter, seedless, and covered
with a thick rind. After ripening fully, it develops a sour taste, so it should be used
before it becomes soft. Breadfruit has a mealy texture, and can be eaten raw,
in a sauce, or simply peeled, boiled and served with a butter sauce. Breadfruit
is sometimes available fresh in groceries, or can be purchased canned. It
should not be confused with jackfruit, which is much larger, oblong, and
contains large seeds.
Cashew Fruit: (Anacardium occidentale) Cashew fruit grows on a large, spreading
tree. One cashew nut hangs from the bottom of each fruit. The 3-inch fruit
is either yellow or rosy red. It is deliciously sour enough to make your whole
mouth pucker.
Cizaki: (Carissa edulis) These small, dark red berries have 4 to 5 hard seeds, and
a sticky white latex juice. They can be used for jellies and jams, or pureed
and mixed in a fool.
Coconut: (Cocos nucifera) The fruit of the coconut palm have a
greenish-brown outer husk 2 to 3 inches thick covering a brown hairy nut. Under
this is a thin brown membrane covering the white meat. Inside the meat is the
coconut water. You can drink the water, or use it to make a delicious rice. The
meat is edible and often grated for cooking. Sometimes you can find young, unhusked
coconuts for sale. The husk can be sliced off with a sharp knife. Inside, the nut
will be creamy coloured and fibrous, but will not have the brown, hairy covering
yet. Crack the nut with a hammer to get at the water and meat. The meat will be
thinner, and soft enough to scoop out of the shell with a spoon. There
is more water in a young coconut.
Guava: (Psidium guajava) This round fruit ranges from 1 to 4 inches
in diameter. A thin green or yellow skin covers the soft and fragrant pinkish
fruit with many tiny seeds in the center. Guavas do not keep very well and
the fresh fruit is only available in warmer climates. Northerners can buy guava
jelly, guava nectar and dried guava slices.
Mango: (Mangifera indica) The large, leafy mango tree is a common sight in
West Africa with smooth, heavy fruit which falls to the ground upon ripening.
Mangoes start out green and hard, turning softer and rosy as they mature. Peel
before eating, and slice the fruit away from the large, flat white pit in
the center. The yellow fruit will taste sweeter if it is allowed to ripen
fully. Mangoes are easy to find in the produce section of most supermarkets.
Papaya: (Carica papaya) Also known as paw-paw, this fruit, which
comes in a range of sizes, is rounded on one end and tapering on the other.
The green skin turns yellow as it ripens. The peach or pink coloured fruit has
a small circle of round, dark seeds in the center, which should be removed.
Paw-paw makes a very pretty fruit salad or puree for a pudding or garnish.
You can usually find it in the produce section of your supermarket.
Pitanga Cherry: (Eugenia uniflora) This juicy red fruit with a
unique taste grows on a large decorative shrub. The cherries are 1/2 to 1
inch in diameter, and ribbed from top to bottom. They are also called Surinam
cherries, or Brazilian cherries. Pitanga cherries make excellent jelly. They
are not usually available outside the tropics.
Plantain: (Musa fehi) Originally from Asia, the plantain looks like a
large, green banana, which turns yellow and then black as it ripens. This fruit
should not be eaten raw, but can be fried, roasted, broiled, boiled, mashed or
grilled.
Pomegranate: (Punica granatum) This round, reddish-brown fruit is about
the size of an orange, with a thick, leathery rind. Break open the outer skin and
you will find many compartments filled with small, red juicy seeds. You can
nudge the seeds out with your fingers and eat them. Or use a spoon, to avoid
turning your hands purple. The seeds freeze well, and make a striking
garnish. Many supermarkets carry pomegranates in their produce section when
they are in season.
Cornmeal: Maize was imported from the Americas in the 16th century.
Today it is used in many fried snacks, or fermented to make kenkey and banku,
thick starches served with a spicy sauce. Maize is also combined with gari
to make a tuwo, or thick staple food, in West Africa. In East Africa this dish
is called Ugali.
Millet:Several varieties of millet have geen grown in
West Africa for centuries. This nutty and slightly bitter grain is made into
tuwo or used for a large variety of fried and boiled snacks. It is also known
as gero or acha. Millet is available in health food stores and by mailorder.
Rice: Rice is grown in many of the wet coastal areas and around the river
valleys of West Africa. Ground rice, or rice flour, is used to make snacks,
breads and fufu or tuwo. Northern and East Africa have long been familiar with
rice due to the Asian and Indian influence on their foods. You can grind
your own rice flour, buy it from a health food store or through mail order
sources.
Sorghum: This staple grain has been grown for hundreds of years in West
Africa, but is hard to find in the northern hemisphere except as animal feed.
Sorghum makes a delicious porridge which the Hausa call kunu. The British
referred to sorghum as Kafir corn, and many old West African cookbooks will call
for corn when they mean sorghum. It is also called guinea corn, or dawa.
Some people call them chilis, or chillis, or chiles, but we are all talking about the same thing - the smooth skinned and brightly colored vegetable that
adds so much excitement to our food. More than 3000 varieties of chiles are grown all over the world, and they come in all shapes, colors and sizes, with heat
levels that range from sweet to searing fire. The word "pepper" is a misnomer. There is actually no relation between the chile plant and the pepper plant.
Chiles are from the nightshade family of plants, or solanaceae. Other members of this plant family are tomatoes, potatoes and
eggplant. The chile genus is capsicum, which comes from the Greek word kapto meaning to bite. In this genus there are
5 species of cultivated chiles. These are chinense, frutescens, baccatum, anuum and pubescens. There are another 20 or so species of
chiles that are not cultivated, but grow wild.
Chiles originated in South and Central America. Of over 3000 known varieties today, many are grown in Africa and Asian countries, but all of
these were transported there somehow many years ago from the American continent.
The heat from chiles is mostly in the membrane that contains the seeds. It is caused by alkaloids called capsaicinoids. There are about 15 different
capsaicinoids, and because there are so many combinations possible we have a huge variety of heat and flavour in different types of chiles. One
common capsaicinoid responsible for the heat level of a chile is capsaicin.
A chile's heat, or pungency, is measured in Scoville Heat Units, or SHU's.
This system was devised by a man named Wilbur Scoville, and is based on the amount of pungency that can be detected by a taster. Because it is a subjective
measure, you'll find a range of results from different testers, instead of a gold standard for each type of chile.
The Red Savina Habanero chile used to be
considered the hottest chile in the world, but in 2006 another searing variety from India, the Bhut Jolokia, was confirmed by Guinness Book of Records to
be much hotter. The Bhut Jolokia measures twice as hot as the habanero, clocking in at over 1,000,000 SHU's. You can see the SHU levels for common types of
chiles on the chart to the left.
Cassava: (Manihot utilissima)The waxy tuber, also called
manioc and yuca, was brought from the Americas in the 16th century. Tapioca
is made from cassava. The raw roots contain hydrocyanic acid, which can be toxic
until it is cooked or dried in the sun. The flesh underneath the bark-like
peel is white and hard, and can be cut in chunks and boiled or added to stews.
Cassava leaves are added to stews and can be purchased dried or canned in African
food stores. Fresh cassava is easily found in the produce section of many supermarkets.
Cocoyam: (Colocasia esculenta) While men are in charge of farming the
true yam, women tend to the smaller cocoyam gardens. This root was imported
from Asia around the beginning of the second millennium. It is a West African
variety of the taro or dasheen which is used to make Poi in the South Pacific.
Garden Eggs: These cream coloured vegetables are the size and shape of
an egg. You may be able to find them canned in northern climates. They
can be used in place of eggplant.
Gari: Cassava is ground, fermented and roasted to make this coarse flour.
Gari has a slightly sour taste which complements breads or fufu, or the popular
dish called gari foto. It is available in most African food stores.
Greens: There are dozens of varieties of dark, leafy greens used in
West Africa. One of the most common is bitterleaf, which must be washed
thoroughly before cooking to remove the bitter taste. Cassava leaves, ewedu,
red sorrel or yakuwa, lansur (a parsley-like leaf), and pumpkin leaves are also
common. Dried bitterleaf is sold in African food stores. No matter what type
of climate you live in you will find many substitutions, including spinach,
kale, beet greens, swiss chard, dandelion, turnip greens or collards. Do not
substitute lettuce for dark leafy greens.
Melons and Gourds: (Cucurbita) Pumpkin and other types of squash are
boiled, mashed, fried or used in sauces and rice. Calabashes are large bowls
made from dried and hollowed gourds, often decorated with engravings.
Sugar Cane: (Saccharum Officinarium) These bamboo-like stalks are
sugary sweet, and chewing them is a pleasant pastime. You can buy sugar cane
swizzlers in some grocery stores, or order them from Frieda's on the Sources
page.
Okra: (Hibiscus esculentus) These pointed, ridged green pods have a
stem on one end, and many small round whitish seeds inside. They give sauces a
slippery texture very common in African foods. The more you chop them and release
the seeds, the more thickening power they will have. Ground okra powder will
make a sauce downright gelatinous, so use it sparingly. Okra pods become fibrous
as they grow so the smaller ones-about 3 inches long-are preferable for cooking.
They can be used canned, fresh or frozen.
Yams: (Dioscorea rotundata) This king of African crops has been
cultivated in West Africa for thousands of years. Yams have been known to
reach one hundred pounds, and grow to eight feet long. In many societies a man's
very worth is determined by the size of his yam harvest. The closest yam in
American markets is "name", pronounced "nah-may", which is often imported from
Costa Rica. It has a dark brown, bark-like skin and cream-coloured flesh underneath.
Real African yams, often imported from Ghana, are an even better choice. In a
Spanish grocery store they will be labeled "name Africanos." There are many
varieties of yam-like tubers for sale.
Agbono: This ground seed is used for it's thickening
properties. Like okra and baobab, it gives a sauce the popular slippery texture.
Black-eyed Peas: (Vigna unguiculata) These legumes, also called cowpeas,
are a staple of West African cooking and are used in just about every type of dish
from stews to starches to snacks like kosai and moyin-moyin. African slaves
transported black-eyed peas to America, and they still play a prominent part
in Southern American cooking. Many people eat a dish with black-eyed peas on
New Year's day to bring good luck in the coming year.
Daddawa: This black, fermented paste is made from the flat beans of the
locust tree. This is a different tree from the European locust tree, which produces
carob beans. Daddawa, also known as iru or ogili, is stored in hard cakes.
It is extremely smelly, but adds a wonderful flavour to sauces. Daddawa is sold
in cakes, balls or bouillon cubes, only from West African grocers. Maggi Sauce
can be substituted.
Egusi: These ground melon seeds are used to thicken stews and as a part
of a steamed dumpling. Egusi is available either whole or ground in African
food stores.
Kola nuts: These brownish-orange, bitter nuts about the size of a chestnut
grow in pods on a tree in the wet coastal forests. Many West Africans enjoy
chewing them, and claim they give an extra burst of energy. In social rituals a
guest is always welcomed with a kola nut, just as many Westerners welcome visitors
with a cup of coffee. In fact, kola nuts contain 2 to 3 times the caffeine of coffee
beans, and are also known as Soudan Coffee. It is easy to spot a kola nut connoisseur
by his orange teeth. Read an interesting article on the rituals associated with the kola nut
called Kola Nut Communion.
Peanuts: (Arachis hypogaea) These legumes are well suited to the West
African climate and are a staple food as well as a cash crop. They are known by the
English name of groundnuts. In Kano peanuts used to be stacked in gigantic
pyramids ready to be shipped off for export. They were also ground and
pressed into oil in the factories there, filling the streets with the smell of
the fresh, roasted nuts. Peanut butter is used as a thickener in many dishes
such as groundnut chop.
Fish can be categorized as fat or lean to help determine the best types to
use in a particular recipe. Many of the varieties below are available in
African waters, with the broad coastline and several large lakes and rivers.
Shellfish such as shrimp, crayfish, crabs and lobster are popular.
Fat Fish: Fat fish can tolderate dryer cooking methods such as
broiling or baking. They do not take too well to deep frying or excessive
oil. Fat fish often have a strong flavour and are well suited to the spicy
sauces of African cooking. Bluefish, mackerel, salmon, shark, swordfish,
tuna, trout, whitefish, butterfish, shad, herring and some catfish are
among the fat fish.
Lean Fish: Lean fish are low in fat, and can become very dry if
they are not cooked properly or are overcooked. They should be cooked by
moist heat methods such as poaching or cooking in a soup or stew, or fried.
If you broil or bake a lean fish be sure to baste with butter, oil or a
liquid to prevent drying. Some lean fish are flounder, sole, halibut, turbot,
cod, haddock, perch, grouper, pike and red snapper. Some farm-raised catfish
are lean.
Dried, Smoked and Salted Fish: Drying and smoking were common methods of
preservation before refrigerators arrived in this steamy part of the world.
Smoked herring or mackerel are inexpensive choices for many of these recipes.
Herring is salted before being dried and smoked, so be sure to soak it for
several hours before adding it to a sauce. You can also use smoked whiting,
kippered herring, and more expensive varieties like smoked trout, haddock or
salmon. Salted fish such as cod (stockfish) and mackerel are common in
African cooking, and should also be soaked several hours before cooking to
remove salt.
Ground Crayfish: This popular seasoning is made from small crustaceans
, dried and ground to a powder. It has a fishy, pungent flavour that blends
with a sauce to give it that real African taste. You can find African crayfish
both as a powder or whole. Throw the whole ones in the food processor and grind
them up yourself. If you can not get African crayfish, try a Spanish or
Asian grocer for dried shrimp or fish sauce.
Palm Butter: This thick red paste is made from palm nuts which have
been boiled, pounded to a pulp and strained. Canned palm butter can be
purchased in most African food stores. It is used as a base for a delicious
seafood sauce.
Ghee: Also called clarified butter, ghee has had the salt and solids
skimmed off during long, slow simmering. It imparts an authentic nutty
texture to many dishes. Ghee is commonly used in North and East African
cuisine. It is very easy to prepare at home and keeps well, so you can
have it on hand when you need it. See recipe on East African foods page.
Peanut oil: The second most common oil in African cooking,
this versatile and widely available oil can stand up to anything from salads to
deep frying.
Red Palm Oil: This rich, red oil is a staple and necessity for real
West African food. It is pressed from the fibrous flesh around the nut of the
fruit of the oil palm. Palm oil, also known as manja or zomi, is used liberally
in soups and sauces, yet because of the unique flavour and aroma the dishes
are delicious rather than greasy and oily. Although it gets a bad reputation
for being highly saturated, red palm oil is actually healthier that white palm
oil. Red palm oil is about 50% saturated. White palm oil is extracted from
the palm kernel itself, and does not have the same deep red colour and
flavour of red palm oil. White palm oil is often used in commerical baked
products and cosmetics, and merely labeled "palm oil." It is about 80%
saturated.
Shea Butter: This fat is extracted from the nut of the shea tree of
West Africa. The smooth-skinned nut is about the size of a walnut, and surrounded
by a yellow or greenish-black pulp. Shea butter is used to make margarine and
chocolate. According to local lore the walls of the ancient Hausa city
of Surame were built of mud mixed with Shea butter. The story goes that Kanta,
the Fulani leader, ordered all the conquered Hausa cities to come and help build
the walls of Surame. Bida, Kano, Zaria, Ilorin, Bornu and Gwanja all arrived on
time. However the people of Nupe were late, and as a punishment Kanta ordered
that the mud for their portion of the wall be mixed with shea butter to make
it extra hard.
