A Harvest of Palm Nuts

Even before we moved to Ghana, I was pleased when I heard of the trees on our property. Coconuts, mangoes, and oranges of our own? I happily thought of the nutritious and delicious meals these things would provide and have not been disappointed. The one tree I was uncertain of was our palm nut tree. I am familiar with palm nut oil but had never used fresh palm nuts before.

Still, I was intrigued with the ones growing on our tree, as were the birds who made meals out of them.

We harvested the palm nuts this week. Poor John got the tough job of whacking them down with a cutlass. The whole tree is fibrous. The branches tenaciously hang on by mere threads, refusing to break off like their woody relatives. It took much of the morning, but eventually hard work paid off and all four palm nut clusters were on the ground.

 My friend, Salome, cut the nuts off of their hearts.

The next day the two of us worked together to pick the nuts off their 'stems'. I told Salome it reminded me of shelling peas as a child -fun for the first hour and quickly going downhill from there. 

Salome taught me the rest of the process which involves cooking the nuts, then pounding them into an oily pulp which I froze for use in soups later on. (The process of making palm nut oil is done by pressing the seeds of the nuts which isn't something regular housewives do themselves.) Salome also showed me how to rinse and strain the pulp, removing seeds and fibers, to get the desired soup base - the goal of all that hard work. 

For supper that evening, I rewarded us all with rice balls and palm nut soup. It was so delicious that even John, the guy who had the hardest job, said the process of turning the nuts into soup was worth it.