Big Bad Baobab?

In Antoine St.-Exupery’s beloved fable “The Little Prince,” the diminutive royal describes having to leave his tiny planet because it was being taken over by an evil tree called baobab.

On our planet, anyhow, baobab (Adansonia digitata) is far from evil. It’s one of the most useful trees of the savanna lands just south of the Sahara, valued from the westernmost tip of West Africa to Lake Chad halfway across the continent.

It’s certainly funny-looking, though. It has a strikingly squat trunk, so the visual effect is of a pop bottle with straggly branches coming out of the top. (The Arabs joke that God planted it upside down, with its roots in the air.) People have hollowed out these capacious trunks for water storage and even personal shelter.

Baobab is related to durian, the stinky fruit of southeast Asia, but its own melon-like fruit is merely sweet-sour with a winy flavor and a floury, mealy texture. Baobab fruit, sometimes called monkeybread, is eaten as is or cooked or made into a refreshing drink by boiling it in water. This “baobabade” has been considered a treatment for fever at least since 1068, when an Arab traveler recorded it.

The leaves are also boiled and eaten by themselves or on porridge. The dried leaves are made into a powder called kuka which thickens sauces and stews.

On top of that, you can press an edible oil from the seeds. And the seeds can also be made into a coffee substitute--or even a substitute for baking soda, which gives the baobab one of its names, baking powder tree. This baking powder substitute itself can be fermented and is said to come out tasting like toasted almonds.

So with baobab seeds you could make biscuits, fry them in oil and eat them with imitation coffee and imitation almonds. Lighten up, Princey--that’s just about life as we know it.