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Senna obtusifolia (Cassia obtusifolia)

(Obtusifolia means “blunt leaves.”)

Caesalpiniaceae (one of the legume families)

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Weeds are cosmopolitan travelers modest at first glance, but  with intriguing exostic secrets.   Each nondescript roadside resident has  a story to tell if we listen (which Google makes easier to do).  And so it is with  Sicklepod, in flower and fruit  right now with its trademark bent knitting needle fruits.   Not rare, not small, but  still under the radar.   It is native, allegedly, although that is often a tough call with global weeds.

 In the U.S. the species might be best known as a soybean pest, thus a prime target for Round-Up herbicide.  In Australia it takes over vast areas as an unwelcome monoculture.  In Florida it crops up here and there on disturbed sites. Being a Senna, it has a natural laxative effect, as in Senokot, and is a livestock toxin. 

North Africa is where Sicklepod has found love and respect, centered in beleaguered Darfur, western Sudan, also along the Nile. it is cultivated for a cluster of reasons, from ornamentality to making mats and fences .  The roots and leaves yield black, blue, and yellowish dyes.  It is host to a fungus processed to control  nematode pests in food crops.  That’s all cool, but we have not gotten to the good stuff yet….a fermented protein-rich food called kawal produced low-budget in horrid growing conditions.   Ethnobotanist Hamid Dirar at the University of Khartoum, Sudan, back in the 80s richly documented this botanical gift.   That a high nutrition food from an aggressive weed may feed millions was not lost on Dr. Dirar. You can grow it on terrible soil, even on a garbage dump. No fertilizer, no pesticides, no irrigation.

Before we go farther, todays’s vocabulary word:  zeer, useful to know if you have a Z in Words with Friends.  A zeer is an earthenware jug or urn used in North Africa and in the Middle East as an off-the-grid  food chiller based on evaporative cooling.    You know, like when you step out of the pool wet and feel cold on an 85-degree afternoon.   Water evaporating from the clay surface of the zeer has the same effect.  A zeer can be buried in cool most sand.   Best of all, it  can take advantage of “burying” and evaporative chilling at once.   To do this, a small zeer is nested in a larger earthen pot, with a layer of moist sand between the two pots.  Evaporation draws water from the wet sand through the outer pot keeping the zeer’s contents cool, calm, and collected.

It may also be useful to know that sorghum is a big tough crop grass from North Africa used as livestock feed and as a cereal staple in some warm regions. Now let’s get to the business at hand:

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As a Fur woman in Darfur related in the 1980s  to Dr. Dirar, here is how to make kawal (don’t try this at home—there are real hazards.)

Leaves are gathered, cleaned, and pounded into a wet paste.

The paste is packed into a large zeer and smothered with sorghum leaves.   The zeer is sealed and buried to its  neck in shaded sand. (Use of  sorghum leaves and sealing techniques vary regionally.)

Every three days, after removing the sorghum, the paste is stirred and supplemented with new leaves. At this time the paste becomes covered with cottony fungus, which is stirred in.  Soon the mixture becomes sufficiently acid to kill the fungus, and  the bacterium Bacteria subtilis takes over. This bacterium, which can inhabit the human digestive system harmlessly, and which is key in other fermented foods, has become a tool in biotechnology and in microbial pest control.

After 15 days the kawal is removed, formed into balls, and sun-dried five more days.

The kawal balls, with 20% protein and a peppery flavor, are usually served in a stew containing okra and sorghum.  During fermentation a pungent  juice separates from the leaf paste and goes into the stew.

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Now if I were marketing kawal, this might not be in the brochure, but the locals say, “when you eat it with your right hand you smell it on your left.”  [Note added after posting…see reader comment below by PTB adding a plausible interpretation, not for the squeamish.]  The large strong kawal plants to six feet tall are  valuable as a windbreak for sorghum.   Sometimes a large spontaneous stand of kawal is  cleared in the center to grow protected sorghum, or kawal may be planted as a perimeter around sorghum.  In either case, the  windbreak is so critical  that those caught brewing kawal before the sorghum harvest are punished to the fullest extent of the law.