Marugbo Soup (Obe Eweta)

Marugbo soup is a dark, almost black vegetable soup built on dried and ground marugbo leaves, with goat meat, smoked fish and palm oil. It belongs to the Ondo people of southwestern Nigeria, and is also called obe marugbo or obe eweta. The colour comes from one ingredient. Marugbo is the Yoruba name for *Clerodendrum volubile*, a tropical vine that grows across West Africa; the leaves are dried and ground to a powder before use, which both concentrates them and deepens the colour. Fresh leaves would give a green soup. Dried and ground, they give the blackish-green that the dish is known for. It is one of several West African soups described as black soup, and they are not the same dish. Edo black soup, from Edo State, uses a different combination of leaves entirely. Both are on this site, which is a genuine cannibalisation risk worth flagging, but they are distinct regional dishes rather than duplicates. The taste is bitter and herbal, which is the point rather than a flaw. Efirin, scent leaf, goes in alongside to lift it. The source makes medicinal claims for marugbo leaves. Those have not been carried across. It is a distinctive regional soup, and that is reason enough to cook it.