Fermented locust bean is a common traditional condiment in Nigeria and other West African countries. We call it "iru" in Yoruba land; it is called "dawa dawa" in Hausa and "ogiri okpe" in Igbo. It is also known as "afintin" in Benin "sumbala" in Mali & Guinea, "netetou" in Senegal, and "nere" in some parts of Burkina Faso. A lot of traditional stews, sauces and soups will not be complete without this savory condiment.

Locust beans from West Africa

Iru woro

WHAT IS LOCUST BEANS?

Locust beans are seeds obtained from the pods of the African locust tree, Parkia biglobosa, which belongs to the family Mimosaceae. These trees grow in parts of West Africa. African locust bean is sometimes called carob because of their similarities in appearance, but they are different from each other.

Carob comes from Ceratonia siliqua tree, typically found in the Mediterranean. It is also called Mediterranean locust beans, which explains the confusion between the two. Mediterranean and African locust beans are used differently. Mediterranean locust bean pods are dried and processed into carob powder which could be used as an alternative to cocoa powder. Carob bean gum is also used to make thickeners and stabilisers for the Food Industry.

Locust beans tree are important in the regions where they are cultivated. The trees offer shade and fix Nitrogen in the soil. The mature elongated pods contain powdery sweet yellow pulp enclosing the seeds. This pulp is a rich source of nutrients, and the seeds, which are the economically important part, are fermented into the condiment – fermented locust beans/dawadawa.

African locust beans pulp

Sweet yellow pulp of African locust beans: feedipedia.org

HOW IS IT PROCESSED INTO DAWADAWA?

The locust bean seed cannot be consumed in its raw state as it is pretty hard. It is processed into locust beans mainly by traditional methods of washing/cooking and fermenting. Here are the steps;

Boil the seed in water for 12-24 hrs to soften the hull.

Dehull by either pounding in a mortar or pressing with the palm (or foot).

Wash to separate the hull from the small brown beans.

Boiling for 1-3 hrs to soften the beans.

Fermentation for 3 days.

Apply salt followed by partial drying in the sun to preserve.

Histoory Of Moringa Leaves

As early as 2000 years BC, Moringa has been described as a medicinal herb in India.

In the annals of Ayurvedic Medicine, one of the oldest healthcare systems in the world, Moringa has been mentioned as a cure for over 300 diseases.

Aside from drinking its leaf extracts as tea all day and eating the leaves and pods as food all over the Indian Subcontinent, West Africa and many parts of Asia , the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians extracted edible oil from the seeds and used it as perfume and skin lotion. In the 19th century, plantations of Moringa in the West Indies exported the oil to Europe for perfumes and lubricants for machinery. It is now used to purify water and combat malnutrition in Africa and many drought-stricken parts of the developing world. Its long list of clinical benefits is amazing.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT’S DOWNFALL

In 326 BC Alexander the Great began moving eastward, intent on conquering all of India and beyond.

Alexander and his forces crossed the Indus river but were halted at the Hydapes River junction by an unexpected force on the other side — the Maurian warriors.

MAURIAN WARRIORS OF INDIA

The Ancient Maurian warriors of India drank the leaf extract of Moringa as their daily staple and on the war-front. These men were known to be “men of stamina and valor”. Not only did Moringa give them the needed strength as warriors, it was a stress reliever and numbed pain.

Roman historians recorded that these warriors needed less sleep and hardly got sick. They repeatedly pounced on Alexander’s armies in over 60 battles in a span of two years..

At age 29, Alexander had conquered most of the known world, creating the greatest empire it had ever seen. His unstoppable conquests ended with the Moringa tea drinking warriors of India.

Alexander turned back to Babylon where he died in 323 BC at the age of 32 and the Maurian victors reigned for 500 more years.

During those days, no one really knew the scientific basis of Moringa’s amazing nutritional and medicinal benefits.

In recent years, the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan tested 120 food species. Moringa topped in terms of nutrient value!

GreenEarth Heritage Foundation brings to you MORINGA, grown at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains, Philippines away from contaminants, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, colorants and preservatives. Its moringa crop line, among others, has been inspected and given certified-organic status by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Ecocert France.

Because of GreenEarth’s holistic mission and programs in improving the lives of farming families, our foundation has also received FAIR TRADE certification from Ecocert France.

100 % of the proceeds from the sale of our moringa tea supports our farming family beneficiaries and all our programs.

US tax persons and corporate entities can avail of tax-exempt benefit for their support of GreenEarth Heritage Foundation, a duly registered 501c3 organization with the US Internal Revenue Service.

Philippine tax persons and corporate entities may also avail of tax exempt benefit given GreenEarth’s PCNC accreditation as a donee institution.

The history of Shea Butter as an invaluable skin care product dates back to Ancient Egypt. Queen Cleopatra always kept jars of pure, unrefined shea butter on hand. She knew the finest beauty secret then and Better Shea Butter & Skin Foods is proud to still be bringing it to you today!

Shea Butter comes from a native, wild-growing African tree that produces a tiny, almond-like fruit with a nut inside.

Villagers separate the nut from the fallen fruit, then boil and let the butter float to the surface. The butter is then milled and filtered for impurities, packaged in blocks and shipped to us so we can bring it to you. Shea Butter is known as “women’s gold” in Africa because it is a valuable source of income for the women in Ghana. All Shea Butter from Better Shea Butter & Skin Foods is unrefined, organic, high-quality and always fresh from Ghana in West Africa.

History of Hibiscus

Each Christmas season, people across the Caribbean raise a ruby glass of sorrel in celebration. But while sorrel is commonly associated with Jamaica, iterations of the refreshing tart-sweet hibiscus drink abound: it’s known as agua de Jamaica, jugo de Jamaica, or rosa de Jamaica in much of Latin America; bissap in Senegal; sobolo in Ghana; and zobo in Nigeria. It can be enjoyed hot or cold; with or without wine; and is sometimes mixed with an overproof rum or other alcohol. Most use a sweetener like simple syrup, brown or cane sugar, or honey; some brew it with aromatics and spices like cloves, ginger, cinnamon, allspice (also known as pimento), star anise, bay leaves, nutmeg, vanilla, or mint. Still others add a citrus boost of lemon, lime, or orange.

No matter the version, this family of aromatic drinks all begins with the Hibiscus sabdariffa, often called roselle, a plant indigenous to continental Africa that now flourishes in tropical regions of the Western hemisphere. Hibiscus-based beverages are made by steeping the calyx of the plant—a plump, radiant cup-like formation at the base of the flower that contains a seed. Once harvested and divested of their seeds, calyces can be used fresh or dried in recipes like jams, cordials, and, of course, tea-style beverages like sorrel.

Hibiscus calyx

Hibiscus calyces on the plant. Getty Images

For many Afro-Diasporans, hibiscus drinks do more than nourish the body and raise the spirits: they invoke history.

When the transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic began in the early 1500s, livestock and plants like hibiscus also made the voyage. In "Seeds of Memory: Botanical Legacies of the African Diaspora," UCLA geography professor Judith Carney explains that the indigenous African foliage and plants served a dual purpose: they were meant to keep the animals alive, and having access to these familiar foods and medicinal plants increased the chances that enslaved people would survive the journey. As a byproduct, “In the early colonial period, plantation owners encountered many new plants growing in the food plots of their slaves,” writes Carney. “Many of these dietary staples are still known in the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English languages by the place name ‘guinea,’ the name slave traders generally applied to the African continent.”

Thanks to tropical climates comparable to West Africa’s, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the American South became a new home for “guinea sorrel.” In addition to its medicinal and culinary applications, hibiscus and other transplants, like okra and kola nuts, likely served a greater purpose: "Having the same plant in the tropical Americas was a semblance of hope," says Michael W. Twitty, the culinary historian and author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. “You reinforced your identity, you reinforced the things that made you happy, you reinforced memories of things that would otherwise be lost.”

In fact, food historian Adrian Miller has made the argument that hibiscus tea, in combination with kola nut tea, formed the basis for red drink—a reference to several red beverages, such as red flavored Kool-Aid, the soft drink Big Red, and old-school, carbonated red drinks—an iconic piece of African American culinary traditions that he refers to as "liquid soul." Like sorrel, red drink is often associated with celebrations, and records show its presence on US plantations during slavery and after Emancipation, as well as, more recently, Juneteenth.

These traditions continue today. Andrea K. Castillo, the Brooklyn-born, Belizean-American founder of Cas Rum Beverages, followed in the footsteps of her great-grandfather, who made fruit wine. The entrepreneur’s love for beverages led her to bottle up her creations for friends, family, and strangers, and eventually launch her bottled rum-cocktail company in 2019. The lineup includes three flavors: rum punch, rum popo, and rum sorrel. “These three things represent my culture and the greater Caribbean diaspora,” says Castillo. “I'm literally able to share my culture with each bottle.”

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Her recipe for sorrel, which derives from a Jamaican sorrel recipe, balances sweet elements with citrus, Belizean overproof rum, and pimento seeds. After bringing water to a boil, she pours it over the dried hibiscus flowers, pimento seeds, and ginger juice, then pours it back in the pot and lets the mixture sit for about 24 to 72 hours. Once strained, Castillo adds sugar, lemon juice, and rum, mixes it all, and prepares it for distribution.

Over the years, there have been a number of boutique beverage brands selling the bright-to-maroon-colored concoction to large-scale commercial businesses, especially Caribbean beer companies like Shandy Carib and Red Stripe. It’s not uncommon for Latin American, Caribbean, or African restaurants of any size to offer a traditional version of sorrel or a fusion cocktail or rum punch version.

With various renditions found across the diaspora, Chef Pierre Thiam, co-founder of Teranga, a fast-casual West African restaurant nestled within East Harlem’s Africa Center, views the dried roselle as a bridge.

"Food, in general, and ingredients, in particular, are unique connectors between cultures,” says the Dakar-born executive chef. “Hibiscus, in this case, transcended borders through the Middle Passage. When I visit Mexico or Jamaica, and I am served their version of bissap, there is a familiarity that makes me feel as if I was home.”

Riaz Phillips, author of Belly Full: Caribbean Food in the UK, recalls his aunts’ fridges stocked with sorrel. Though there hasn’t been much documentation on how Afro-descendants, particularly those of Caribbean descent, preserve cultural cuisine in Europe, the East London–born writer has made it a priority to document the UK’s Caribbean culinary scene. Phillips, who is of Jamaican-Vincentian-Cuban heritage, sees how the dried hibiscus flowers found in popular markets in Dalston and Brixton connect to the Caribbean community in places like Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and ultimately, to the African continent.

“This plant, like all other pan-African foodstuffs, including the famed plantain, can be a representation to illustrate our unified origins and highlight how similar we all are,” says Phillips. “We get wrapped up in these modern nations and flags, but the interesting founding histories of all these do well to document that we all come from the same people, and all eat and drink the same things.”

In the case of sorrel, “that's Black joy and Black survival,” says Twitty, “and Black culture, and Black foodways, and Black drinkingways—all bound up in one cup of hibiscus.”

This is highst quality of hibiscus from under the African sun. This hibiscus carefully hand picked.

Benefits are to treat hypertension, diabetes and many more.

Properties: antioxidant, vitamine C, D and E