MY PALM NUT SOUP or DEKU DESSI (BANGA SOUP)

How is the Palm nut liquid extracted?

 Originally the Palm nut Soup is from the juice extracted from a pounded cooked Palm nut fruits called Deku in ewe language. The palm nut fruits are first cooked until the meaty part is really tender. After that the whole fruit is then gently pounded in a special mortar to separate the flesh from the nut. When well pounded it release enough paste that will be use to make this palm nut soup.

The fibrous part left after straining is discarded or dried up for fire starter. Nuts can be cracked and eat as snacks or to produce Palm Kennel oil.  

Alternatives

Of course, it is not every day you have time for all those preliminary food prep. My mom tends to freeze the pulverized palm nut for later use when she needed it. Living in America I couldn’t find the fresh palm nut!

You can conveniently buy the palm nut paste in a can. When I tried the canned palm nut it upset my sensitive stomach. I wasn’t sure what was the added ingredients that the canned palm nut contains.  Altogether I stop using it until my cousin recently told me I can purchase the natural frozen one in an African market.

I did found it! It was just like my mom used to make it! Sure enough I did not have any adverse reaction after eating this. So definitely, I will recommend the frozen one, if you can find it, instead of the can one. You can serve the palm nut soup with rice, Fufu, gari, banku, ablo.