Bush banana

What it is

Uvaria chamae belongs to the custard-apple family. Its separate, finger-shaped fruits gather into clusters, giving rise to local names that translate as bush banana. Inside the ripe fruit, sweet pulp surrounds a few shiny, light-brown, somewhat flattened seeds. The pulp is the part eaten fresh.

Where it comes from

Its range crosses tropical Africa from Senegal to the Central African Republic. The shrub grows in savannah and secondary forest. In Guinea-Bissau, it is part of savannah woodland; in Benin, fallow ground and farmland are its main homes.

How it's eaten where it grows

In Togo, people eat the sweet pulp raw at the gathering place. Ripe fruit is also eaten directly in Benin. Not everyone there eats it: the Nago people of Igbèrè don’t, because they didn’t know it was edible.

In Guinea-Bissau, the fruit is traded and eaten raw, with names including banana-de-santcho and banana-di-macacou. It keeps only a short time and is sold as it is, without drying or other processing.

How it's grown

Bush banana grows as a shrub until a nearby tree provides support for climbing. It bears sweetly scented flowers, and its fruit is gathered from wild plants.

In Benin, expanding farms and settlements remove the fallow land where it grows. Local communities there suggest growing it in home gardens and botanical gardens to keep it for the people who use it.

When and where you'll find it

Across Togo’s inland ecological zones, fruiting usually runs from June to September. July brings ripe fruit at Alhéridè, in Tchaoudjo prefecture. In Guinea-Bissau, the local fruit trade provides another encounter with bush banana, under names such as banana-de-santcho; the traded fruit is fresh rather than dried.