I'm out of Casamance cashews

I've been missing Senegal since I came back. Pretty much every day my phone rings for a few seconds, and it's someone I met there saying "bonjour" in that peculiar way. If they ring twice, that means that I should give them a call. Sometimes I also get an sms telling me that the hibernage is going well at home or that there are so many mangoes even cows let them rot on the ground. Yesterday I called Mame Fatou, my "mum" in Guédiawaye (in fact an Ibadu or orthodox Muslim woman my age) with whom I've had the most interesting conversations about religion and politics I've ever had. Every time I talk to her I wish they had invented something even faster than planes that would allow me to go there to taste her Thie Boudienne again.

And really, it's about time I go back, because I've ran out of Casamance cashews!! One more addiction to add to my list, following olive oil. Little did I know when I got off the boat in Ziguinchor that I was about to learn where cashews came from and how hard it is to make them properly. Because, in case you don't know (as I didn't) cashews come from a tree that has a fruit that looks a bit like red and yellow chubby pepper with a green ... something hanging at the end. Like this:



People (often children) go around picking the cashew fruit around with buckets. There are not many Toubabs around doing it, but every now and then you run into one that shines like the the ass of a blue-butt-money. This one was seen near Bignona.




Once you've picked up the cashew fruits and sorted out the pepper-like fruit from the ... herr ... something-like appendix where the nut is, you proceed to make juice with the fruit, squeezing it either by hand or with the help of a big stick. But careful with the bees!! They're addicted to cashew fruit (specially when it starts to ferment!)



And then comes the hardest part: drying and toasting the nuts. Impatient young people will probably not wait long enough for them to dry in the sun. The problem is that then nuts become flammable, and you know what will happen when you put them on the fire? This:



And that is bad, because cashews are not fire-proof and they get black and with an intense burnt flavour (guess what: you've burnt them!). But if you let them dry long enough and then put them on the fire, the shell will get crispy and separate from the nut easily.



That's better!! The end result, in this case a mix of burnt and not burn cashews, is super tasty. But I'll have to wait until next year to have more of those. Sniff.