I pulled up my Bambara Groundnut patch today. I imagine I'll find a few more 'nuts' stored under the sweet potato patch in vole and mouse nests. Barbaras are grown by hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers in semi-arid Africa (where they were first domesticated) as well as in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. They are the third most important legume on the continent, after their cousin the cowpea (black eyed pea) and the peanut, with whom their history is entwined. Peanuts, originally from Paraguay and Brazil, traveled to Africa via Spain during the transatlantic slave trade, and were readily adopted because the grow and are prepared in the same way. Both plants grow their edible seeds underground from pegs that dive down from fertilized yellow flowers. You can boil or roast the fresh seeds (like peanuts) or dry them to make four, dumplings, cakes, or porridge. According to the BamNetwork (where much of this info came from), many people prefer Bambara milk to soy or cowpea. Bambara is very nutritious, very drought tolerant, and it gives back by fixing atmospheric nitrogen in the soil. My Speckled Bambara seeds came from @roughwoodseeds, and theirs came from a market in Francistown, Botswana in 2001. #vignasubterranea #vigna #legume #fabaceae #seedkeeping #bambara #bambaragroundnut #bamnetwork #kacangbogor #speckledbambara #bambaranut #bambaranuts #jugobeans #okpa #nyimobeans #izindlubu #gurjiya (at Delaware County, Pennsylvania)
