Oill Palm Fruit & Oil

[Banga (Nigeria (fruits)); Elaeis oleifera (Central and South America), Elaeis guineensis (West Africa), also American oil palm, Attalea maripa (not much used)]

These tropical feather palms, which can grow to over 60 feet tall, are very productive and produce oily red fruit about the size of a plum. There is evidence palm oil was used in Ancient Egypt. The African species was taken to Malaysia and Indonesia which are now the two largest producers, but they produce refined oil, not red oil.

Red Palm Oil is much used in cuisines of Central and South America, particularly Brazil, in Southeast Asia, and of course Africa. Southern India uses a lot of palm oil but gets theirs from coconut palms. virgin Palm Oil for cooking is easily recognizable by it's orange-red color.

The photo to the left, taken in Ghana, shows palm fruit ripe and two weeks from ripe, The fruit is often red and black, rather than just red, but is orange-red inside.   Photo by Bongoman distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v3.0 Unported.

More on the Palm Family

Red Palm Oil / Dendê Oil

This Oil is much used in West Africa, and in Bahia Brazil, which has a large population descended from African slaves. In Brazil it is called Dendê Oil which is the Portuguese name.   Details and Cooking.

Palm Kernel Oil

This oil, pressed from the kernels discarded from culinary preparation, is almost colorless. It is used mainly in manufacture of soap and cosmetics. It is very high in saturated fats so semi-solid at normal room temperatures.

Oil Palm Fruit

The photo to the left shows the form of Oil Palm Fruit most available in North America. Several brands are available from several Internet markets. This concentrate (cream, paste, sauce, butter) is ready to use in Banga Soup and other preparations. An 800 gm / 28.2 ounce can sells for between 2018 US $6 and $7 plus shipping.

The concentrate is also much used in Nigeria by those who can afford it because it is far more convenient than whole fruit, as you will see below.

The photo to the left is of Oil Palm Fruit removed from the bunch and ready to prepare for cooking.   Photo by T.K. Naliaka (cropped and rotated) distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v4.0 International.

1. Wash the fruits well to move all dirt and debris.
2. Boil the fruits for 15 to 20 minutes or until they soften.
3. In a large mortar, pound the fruit well, but not so hard you break the kernels. The skins should break up and the color becomes more or less even. You can remove the kernels as you go.
4. Pour some hot water over the fruit and mix very thoroughly.
5. Strain the pulp through a mesh strainer and discard the fiber, skins and other solids.