Locust bean, commonly referred to as "iru" by the Yoruba people, "ogiri" or "dawa dawa" by the Igbo people, is a local seasoning or condiment used in soups and stews. Globally, it is referred to as African locust bean.
Locust beans are seeds obtained from the pods of the African locust tree, Parkia biglobosa, which belongs to the family Mimosaceae. These trees grow in parts of West Africa.
The West African locust looks nothing like what Westerners might consider a vegetable plant to be. It is a tree.
Botanists named this plant genus Parkia in honor of Mungo Park, one of the first Europeans to record it.
Locust combines in a single species Africa’s two greatest needs: food and tree cover.
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Locust bean trees are important in the regions where they are cultivated. The trees offer shade and fix Nitrogen in the soil.
Locust beans are attractive savanna trees, with dramatically spreading crowns and clusters of globular bright red flowers dangling like holiday decorations on long stalks.
For one thing, they produce fruit.
Numerous large pods, up to as long as your forearm and wider than your thumb, emerge all over the spreading crown, dangling like the fingers of a green or brown giant.
Inside each pod is a yellow or orange dryish pulp.
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People like it, and no wonder: it can be half sugar and very sweet to the taste, almost like a desert.
This mealy delight can make a useful baby food but for many children it may be the main-if not the only-dish, depending on what is left in the family’s granary.
It is also made into colorful and refreshing drinks.
Instead, it is the seeds enclosed within it that are the most prized product.
These are a regular part of people’s diet and, throughout much of West Africa, they also turn into lifesavers in times of famine.
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The most famous (or infamous) product from the seeds is a greasy extract with the stench of the strongest cheese.
It typically comes in the form of sticky blackish balls, well known in West Africa, where itinerant traders barter them under the Hausa name dawadawa as well as under the name soumbala (Bambara- and Malinké speaking peoples of central West Africa).
This fermented material keeps well even in tropical heat and is rich in protein, vitamins, and food energy.
Thanks to dawadawa, locust seed is a major item of commerce across West Africa.
However, producing the pungent paste is a traditional family craft and, although some dried beans are sold in local markets, most are collected and processed by individuals for their own use.
Because of all this, locusts-along with baobab and shea-are among the most commercially valuable of all parkland and farm trees in that and other parts of the region.
Although they are among the commonest natural trees seen across the park savanna of West Africa, each one is the property of a nearby villager.
Those ownership rights are worth hanging on to.
The locust, which has received almost no horticultural recognition, combines likely answers to Africa’s twin needs of food and tree cover.
Its seeds are gathered by the thousands of tons and peddled by itinerant traders throughout West Africa.
Chiefly, they are fermented into the famous dawadawa, a cheesy solid rich in protein, vitamins, and food energy.
In some ways it takes the place of cheese or meat in a European diet.
It keeps well without refrigeration even in the tropical heat and is popular as a seasoning and soup ingredient.
Thus, locusts are sometimes the only trees to be seen in the West African savannas.
They are left standing whenever bush is cleared.
The mature elongated pods contain powdery sweet yellow pulp enclosing the seeds.
The locust bean seed cannot be consumed in its raw state as it is pretty hard.
It is processed into locust beans mainly by traditional methods of washing/cooking and fermenting.
Fermented locust bean is a common traditional condiment in Nigeria and other West African countries.
We call it "iru" in Yoruba land; it is called "dawa dawa" in Hausa and "ogiri okpe" in Igbo.
It is also known as "afintin" in Benin "sumbala" in Mali & Guinea, "netetou" in Senegal, and "nere" in some parts of Burkina Faso.
It is not easy to look at, and the smell is unpleasant.
The African locust beans can only be safe for consumption after it has been processed.
The pre-processing procedures involve, harvesting, decorticating, de-pulping and drying.
The African locust beans can only be safe for consumption after it has been processed.
The pre-processing procedures involve, harvesting, decorticating, de-pulping and drying.
The finished product could be sold fresh or moulded into cakes and dried further.
Iru is made by fermenting and processing the locust beans in a process that could take between 3 to 5 days.
Traditional (local) method - This is the method African woman have used for ages.
It involves cleaning, boiling between 12-24 hours, cooling, dehulling (separation of the hull from the seeds usually done with foot or palm) washing, separation of seed coats and selection, re-boiling for another 1-2hrs, fermentation, then moulding in salted water.
This takes about 5 days.
Improved (Modern) method. The modern method involves the use of a special machine which have steamers for boiling and a dehauling chamber for separating.
This reduces the processing time significantly.
The traditional method is rigorous, time-consuming and unhygienic with the seeds usually degraded.
Unfortunately, this is still the popular method as most of the women are unable to afford the machines.
Mechanized processing of locust bean will reduce drudgery associated with its processing.
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