Buy - Fruit de Baobab

Sticking with Ewan’s obsession with food, there are many additional foods that are worth writing about! I’ll stick with my current obsession: baobab, the magical fruit.

My first week here I was introduced to the variety of sweet, satisfying, delicious tropical fruit juices widely available. My favorite immediately became bouye, made from the fruit of baobab trees. It’s so thick and creamy, it’s more like a milkshake than juice. It has a wonderful, refreshing taste. Nothing leaves me more satisfied when I’m hot, dehydrated, and fatigued after dancing.
All over Dakar, independent vendors sell goodies on the street. Most of these goodies are local products, such as peanuts in all sorts of varieties. I always noticed little plastic bags with small white rock-like objects. Having no idea what it was and too timid with my limited vocabulary to ask, I went on buying peanuts and other familiar snacks. Recently I found out that these little white rocks were the fruit from baobabs, those monumental trees. And that they are delicious. It’s a dry fruit with a texture unlike any other I’ve ever had, which you suck on and then spit out the seeds. It has a tart, unique flavor. When I started eating these I couldn’t stop, but figured it had to be healthy. It’s fruit after all.
As it turns out, healthy was an under-exaggeration. After doing a little research I found out that this fruit has:

-Six times the vitamin C as an orange
-Twice as much calcium as a glass of milk
-Loads of antioxidants
-Iron and potassium
-It’s good for your stomach when sick (when I went to buy a large quantity of it, the vendor asked if I was feeling okay)
-The seeds you spit out can be roasted, ground, and boiled into a coffee-like drink (I’ve been saving my seeds and plan on trying this if I can figure out a way to grind them here)
-You can make ice cream out of it (one lady selling the stuff had a recipe for this; one ingredient was a bunch of kids in the neighborhood to run back and forth to bring enough ice)

Needless to say, I’ve eaten a ton of it since figuring out what it is. My bones, immune system, and stomach have felt great every since! Did I mention that it’s ridiculously cheap?



While on the topic of fruit, I should add that the long-awaited mango season is approaching. I love mangoes. I’ve been excited about mango season since I arrived. The other day I bought ripe mangoes for 10 cents each. This is a sure sign that mango season is coming. It shouldn’t be long before mangoes are falling from the sky (or at least from the giant mango tree in our neighbor’s yard, much of which is hanging over our back courtyard). :)