Dawadawa: The Magical Food Ingredient
Dawadawa is the Hausa name for the fermented seeds of the African locust bean tree, it’s sold in the market in the form of a sticky black ball. Among the Bambara and Malinke people, it's called soumbala. The Fulani refer to it as narghi, and depending on the ethnic group in Nigeria, it is either called ogiri, and nere.
I like to think that dawadawa runs through the smile of my mothers people, the Kassena Nankana tribe in the Upper East region of Ghana. I grew up hearing, smelling, and eating dawadawa quite frequently, however, I had no idea what the African locust bean tree looked like.
Dawadawa is the food ingredient that walks into a bowl, and all the other ingredients gossip about how terrible it smells, but they know it is about to transform the recipe. I would describe dawadawa as the kick to the party, i would even go as far as saying that it is the main character the show did not know it needed. But, the process to make dawadawa from the seeds of the African locust bean is quite a feat.
I have to admit, the first time I saw the process, I asked, how did the first person who fermented these seeds know that this is what the seeds can be used for? And for me, that is the ultimate power of ancestral foods, it's beyond the technicality, it's the relationship between the food, the environment, and the preserver of the ingredient. How did they know?
Dawadawa comes from the seeds of the dried fruit on the African locust bean tree.
The African locust bean is a huge tree, its branches are like a large towering crown. The fruit of the tree are skinny dark brown long pods dangling beautifully on the tree. On the outside, like most ancestral trees, the tree is outstanding, and once you see it, you know it offers many nutritional blessings.
The leaves, the fruit, the bark are all used for medicinal purposes. The dark brown pods hold two amazing life healing foods, the yellow dried pulp and the hard seeds fermented into dawadawa.
Inside each pod is a dried yellowish edible fruit. Depending on the tree, some of the dried fruits are sweet, and some are savory. The dried yellow fruit tastes almost like a dessert. In fact, it can be used to make delicious desserts, but in communities in the northern part of Ghana, it is often used to make beverages.
The hard seeds inside the yellow fruit are magical. Once the seeds are harvested from the fruits, they are washed very well, dried, and prepared for boiling. The seeds are boiled twice in order to get them ready for a three day fermentation process. Dawadawa is the end product of the fermentation from the seeds inside the fruit of the African locust bean.
Once it’s fermented, it has a sticky and sour taste on its own. And yes, it survives in the heat without refrigeration due to the fermentation. It contains protein, fat, sugar, starch, and fiber, as well as iron, calcium, minerals, and vitamins.
The health benefits in this food is a life saver. The tree is reliable, regardless of the climate, it fruits around the same time every year. Even when there is extreme drought, and other vegetation has died, this tree will produce numerous large pods, emerging all over the large tree crown.
In much of West Africa, dawadawa is a part of most people’s regular diet. It is as important to cooking as onions and peppers are. In fact, when you do not have the most basic ingredients such as onions, garlic, and pepper, dawadawa is the seasoning to save the day.
I believe the process of making dawadawa is a family craft. It is passed on from generation to generation. When I ask how women learned it, most respond to having learned it from their mother. The making and selling of dawadawa is an important economic activity for women.
I grew up eating dawadawa jollof. I remember my mother adding it to her tomato based stew, stirring it in, adding her salt, and other ingredients, and once the sauce cooked down, she would add the rice to make jollof. And as the jollof cooked, dawadawa would rise among the ingredients, teasing everyone in the household that food was ready.
Sadly, the popularity of dawadawa may be diminishing, largely due to imported bouillon cubes, as well as Asian and European ready to go food flavoring cubes. As more people move to the urban centers, working to survive and provide for their families, working longer hours each week, more and more people are gravitating towards the ready to eat foods. This means, less time is spent preparing traditional meals, seeing and knowing the process of how these meals are prepared.
When I learned that the locust bean tree can thrive in full sun, loves the tropical heat, can increase food production, is imperative for rural development, and provides the much needed forest cover. What are we waiting for on the African continent?
