I’ve only tasted egusi when my partner Chris cooks West African food. It’s delicious! He’s been cooking with coarsely ground egusi seeds for years, but was particularly excited about them when he returned from Ghana this April, where he ate this vegetarian protein in several meals. I brought one of his dishes to lunch and shared it with Truelove Seeds apprentice Amirah, who is also focused on seed crops of the African Diaspora, and who has also eaten egusi in Ghana. She asked if we could grow it, and I ordered seeds from the only place I could find them: Amazon (via Serendipity Seeds). They germinated and grew well, and we are now harvesting our first fruits for seed. We had no clue what we’d find inside.
Egusi is used primarily in West Africa for its de-hulled seeds, which thicken soups as a flour, are a great snack whole, make a paste like peanut butter, and have a high oil content. Egusi is the name for many species of cucurbits (melons, watermelons, and gourds) whose seeds are used for this purpose. Similar to Callaloo, egusi is a category of crops based on their similar function. See the Lost Crops of Africa volume II for a short list of species and lots of great info about this important seed crop. They mention that egusi is mostly grown by women, and that improvements in the promotion and sales of this seed will bring up the “egusi wage”, which is defended by women farmers of all ages as their standard of living depends on it.
Egusi soup is central to many West African cuisines, and is also an offering to several Orisas (including Obatala) in Ifá religion in Nigeria and beyond.
The particular species we are growing is called Egusi-itoo (Cucumeropsis mannii). The seeds are fat, white, and beautiful, and according to Amirah, the flesh is the essence of bitterness. We are so grateful that it seemed happy in our hoop house, and excited to deepen our relationship to its seeds and its story.
#egusi #egusiseeds #egusiitoo #cucumeropsismanni #lostcropsofafrica #seedkeeping
