Bouye Juice — Senegal

Bouye juice is a beverage made from the pulp of the baobab fruit, known locally as bouye, a dry, chalky, sour-sweet pulp that surrounds the seeds inside the tree's large woody pods and keeps well long after the fruit itself has fallen. It is reported throughout Senegal, sold by street vendors in bottles or bags and made at home, where it is a common way to use the baobab fruit outside of the dry season when the fresh pulp is not otherwise eaten straight, and it travels easily since the dried pulp keeps for months before being mixed into a drink. To prepare it, the pulp is broken away from the pods and seeds, then soaked and worked by hand in water or milk until it softens and dissolves into the liquid. The mixture is left to infuse, then pressed through a sieve or cloth to remove fibres and seed fragments, and sweetened with sugar, sometimes with a little vanilla, before being chilled and served cold. What distinguishes one version of bouye juice from another is mainly the base liquid — water gives a lighter, more tart drink while milk gives a creamier one — along with the ratio of pulp to liquid and the amount of sugar added, which each household adjusts to taste.