Banga Soup
Aperçu
Banga soup is made from palm fruit, not palm oil, but the pulp extracted from boiled palm nuts, which gives a soup with a completely different weight and flavour from anything oil alone produces. It belongs to the Niger Delta, and particularly to the Urhobo, though it is cooked across southern Nigeria under several names. Ofe akwu is the Igbo version, and while the base is the same the treatment differs, ofe akwu is usually served with rice, while banga is a soup for swallow. Oghwo amiedi and izuwo ibiedi are Urhobo and Isoko names for it. The same palm fruit base appears well beyond Nigeria. In Ghana it becomes abenkwan, palm nut soup; in Cameroon, mbanga soup. It is one of the clearest examples of a single West African technique carrying across borders and taking a different name in each place. What makes banga specifically banga is the spice set. Beletientien, oburunbebe stick, aidan fruit and the Delta spice blends give it an aromatic, slightly resinous character that is quite unlike any other Nigerian soup. The oburunbebe stick in particular is stirred through the pot and left in it. Fresh fish is the classic protein, catfish above all, though assorted meat and dried fish are equally common.
My buddy from Lagos gave me an oburunbebe stick last month so I had to give this a bash. Used chuck beef leftover from Saturday's braai instead of stockfish since my wife isn't big on dried fish smells in the kitchen. That canned palm nut extract takes a good while to boil down till the oil separates, but man, it came out baie lekker and rich.