This is actually the first time i saw what a palm nut looks like …My house maid was making some for her husband (Our guard) and i just happened to be there at the right time with my camera ofcourse.She was quite amused that i took pictures of her pounding the hell outta those nuts. And then later of the soup….she probably thinks i’m nuts or somethin with the look she gave me…”Why would anyone want to take pictures of food. Food is for eating !” was her argument.

So here she is pounding the palm nuts and that is one tough job as she was at it almost for 30mins.The nuts are surprisingly greasy.She kept adding water and crushing it which released the juices and she collected that in another pot,and kept repeating it till the nuts were absolutely squished out of their goodness.
I’ve kept a palm nut on the rim of that bowl for you to see, as that was the only one left for me to click.
Now this is just the palm nut pulp with water.It has quite a rich colour and has quite a lot of natural oil floating on top.What happened after this i did’nt really get to see but i was told that u have to add whole onions and tomatoes, ginger, garlic ,red pepe(the local super hot red chilli). The choice of meat is yours…anything goes…lamb,chicken…she used fish head.Boil it for a while and once the tomatoes and onions are soft ,get them out and puree them and add it back.Let it simmer on slow fire and Voila’…

The soup tasted wonderful….spicy, fishy, had a very rich texture…full of body and lovely flavours,just needed a squeese of lime and i thought some thyme would go well too. It was pretty heavy though. But hey , who doesnt love a free bowl of soup !Childhood The beautiful Cinderella All things scattered Lingering sentiments The years unforgettable memories