The taste of palm oil

[asakiyume]

Sesame oil, peanut oil, olive oil--they have really distinctive tastes. Sesame oil really tastes like sesame, and peanut oil has a peanut taste, and olive oil doesn't taste like pickled olives, or brined olives, but it tastes the rich and fragrant way it smells.

Palm oil has a really distinctive taste too. When I tasted Flo's Nigerian fried beans, cooked in plenty of palm oil, it was the first time in a long time that I tasted something so completely *new* and *different*.


Nigerian fried beans from All Nigerian Recipes

Palm oil has, to me, a green taste ( which is funny since it's bright red), green and deeply warm. It tastes the way leaves baking under the midday sun smell--and mix that smell with the smell of hot, warm earth--that dusty warm smell. That's how it tastes to me. And it has a lingering feel in the mouth, the way peanut butter does--but not quite that sticky.


Do I like it? At first it nonplussed me a little because the flavor was so unlike other oil flavors I've experienced, but I enjoyed it. And today, going back for leftovers, I felt less tentative, more enthusiastic. Tastes: BROADENED.

Here is an oil palm plantation (photo from Azran Jaffar's article on a prizewinning smallholder's plantation)



Apparently there are two types of oil to be had from the oil palm. Red palm oil, the kind I used, comes from the fruit. A golden oil comes from the kernel.
Photo source here

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Now I want to try it!

(That picture looks delicious!)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's a *very different* taste. It's been a long, long time since I tasted something so different, so unlike other things. But good!

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

And fried bananas as well? Oh, this is too much! (anguished flail of envy)
It's breakfast time here, and that all looks and sounds wonderful!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

So what delicious thing did you end up eating for breakfast? And where you are, do you cook for yourself, or does someone cook for you, or do you buy in prepared food, or....?

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

This morning, leftover banana curry, and yes, cooked by me. :)

But many, many mornings we buy banh mi trung from a woman down the lane, who cooks it and sells it on her front step. (It tastes great, but translates as an unexciting soft-omelette-in-a-roll, with other bits in it, like chilli,and grated vegetable pickle.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Both the banana curry and the banh mi trung sound *delicious*. Now I want to make them.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Ditto this! Yum, yum, yum

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

That looks amazing.

Are those plantains?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Those are indeed plantains! I was not organized enough to make *both* the plantains and the beans, so we had just the beans and rice, but one day I will make the entire meal.

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting, now I wish to try something with palm oil. Even if I have very insensitive taste buds, so I may not be able to taste any difference. But I would still like to try.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What would be great would be to have a Nigerian friend, or someone who's been to Nigeria or some other part of West Africa, cook you up something.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oils do have such wonderfully different flavors.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

There is so much variety to *everything*, and variety makes life so *good*.

[pinkroo.livejournal.com]

yum!! I've had Nigerian food with palm oil; the red color is kind of startling!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The only Nigerian food I've ever had is stuff I've cooked myself, with one exception: akara, which I got at a local market (and which was what started me wanting to cook other Nigerian food--it was so amazing and delicious).

What other Nigerian dishes have you had? Is there a restaurant near you, or a market, or do you have Nigerian friends, or...?

[pinkroo.livejournal.com]

I've had some kind of goat stew and a veggie thing with greens; a friend is married to a man from Nigeria and has learned how to make stuff.

She loves palm oil, so uses it freely :)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I wonder if palm oils have the amazing flavour variations of olive oils? I usually have four or five varities on the go at any time- different flavours for different uses- from mild and fruity to strong and peppery.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I imagine there might be! When I found out that there were two types of oil produced from oil palm fruit, I found out that although the oil from the seed is highly refined, the oil from the fruit is left unrefined. There's probably huge variation, like with different pressings of olives.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

I really don't want to be a party-pooper, but palm oil production has huge environmental issues. I have to admit that I've boycott it completely and always read product ingredient lists in the supermarket to avoid it. :)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

So do I, but I suspect that there'll be artisanally produced fair trade palm oils out there somewhere (although I admit I've yet to find a source).

Being a Yourpeen, I'm lucky to live close to a number of countries producing artisanal olive oils.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

*nods*

There seems to be issues even with the sustainable palm oil, which I haven't come across either btw.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Another issue is displacement of indigenous populations. This has been a problem in Indonesia, particularly (at least, that's where I come across news of it). There are boycotts of particular brands and support of companies that behave in a better way (kind of like with coffee, only more so).

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I would never, ever buy a product with the name Nestlé attached!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Being European, you can be more pleased about your agricultural policy than I can, as an American. As an American, I'm plenty aware of agribusiness's abuses in my own country. Lots of climate-change-hastening, environmentally destructive, unsustainable behavior going on right in my own country, so while I don't condone what goes on in palm oil plantations in Southeast Asia, there are LOTS of problems that I could/should be addressing in my own country simultaneously, or first. Casting the beam out of my own eye, and all that.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Yeah- at least we've managed to maintain a ban on GMO's and that's largely down to public pressure- it's a real vote loser.

Organics are popular and they have a sale.

It's not really rocket science.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yep, I do know all about the environmental issues, and I'm not intending to make it a major part of my diet. There are sustainably produced palm oil, though: I found this page (http://www.evolvingwellness.com/essay/guide-to-red-palm-oil-health-nutrition-sustainability-brands), which lists several.

The sort I bought doesn't claim to be sustainably produced, so it probably isn't, but it's from Ghana, which as I was saying to cmcmck in my other entry about it, isn't like Indonesia or Malaysia with huge mega-plantations (also, the oil palm is native to western Africa, which maybe makes it a little less bad there--though huge plantations of just one type of crop are always bad news).

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Ghana produced oil is maybe less controversial than South-East Asian produced oil.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The only commercially produced food oil here in the UK is rapeseed oil which can mean attractive bright yellow fields of that particular brassica in springtime (amazing if it's being organically grown and there are poppies :o)

http://yorkshire-photography-workshops.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/MS38828.jpg

but at least it doesn't do the environmental harm that commercial palm oil does.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

We produce rapeseed oil as well here in Denmark, it does make for beautiful fields, although I've yet to see one with a lot of poppies in it. :)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The fields that have the amazing bursts of colour are not being sprayed and are being grown organically.

When an organic field is allowed to lie fallow for a year, you get this:

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSCesRa6uiFuY_Kkf0fexuXiIW9uqi1K2Ke1QXD0bbY_7C62XsLRA

[frigg.livejournal.com]

I have a wild field and there is an organic farmer further down the road, but we rarely have such beautiful fields. I mostly get grasses, dandelions, and thistles with the occasional daisy (although I did have a single poppy one year) - probably because I'm just mowing it and not removing plant material. The farmer had a rather pretty field full of cow vetch and a few daisies last year. It attracted loads of butterflies. :)

Seems like I need to come to the UK for the really gorgeous fallow fields. :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that is very pretty!

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Thank you so much. I am trying new things lately. My tastes will be expanding. This is encouraging.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

♥ ♥

Yay!

Perfect description

[flo (from livejournal.com)]

Now, that's a perfect description of the taste of palm oil. Thanks for helping put the taste into words. That sounds spot on! I love it when those with "foreign" taste buds describe what another culture's food and ingredients taste like, they always do a better job.

Well done for trying this recipe and doing a great job of it! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I know what it took for you to get the main ingredient, you are a DOER lady. Hopefully you have some palm oil left so you can try other recipes. Please let me know if you need suggestions. ;)

Re: Perfect description

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I do have palm oil left! I look at it on my counter and dream about the dishes I will make.

Just the other day I made up a batch of your tomato stew, from a huge bunch of fresh tomatoes a friend gave me (smelled so good cooking), so now I will maybe choose a dish with palm oil and tomato stew....

Yes, please tell me! What do you recommend?

Re: Perfect description

[flo (from livejournal.com)]

That you made the tomato stew is like music to my ears! Takes a lot of patience. Sorry to disappoint you but Tomato Stew (prepared with vegetable oil) and palm oil are in different leagues when it comes to Nigerian cooking, you can't find those two in one dish. But you will see us fry the tomatoes with bleached palm oil instead of vegetable oil. ;)

I recommend Concoction Rice (in the cookbook). Main ingredients are palm oil and smoked fish. I hope you will like it.

There are lots of recipes you can use the tomato stew for. :)

Re: Perfect description

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I thought maybe the palm oil and the tomato stew might not go together. Ah well; I will use them in separate recipes in that case. Next, though, I will make Concoction Rice! Mmmm, smoked fish--delicious :)

Thank you!

Re: Perfect description

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've done it! I made Concoction Rice, and took a picture (entry here (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/751245.html))!

I'll leave you a message on Facebook or at your website, too.