Bouye

Baobabs are pretty amazing trees. With their short, chubby trunks and their round, wide spreading canopies, they look like they were planted upside-down (one of their many names is “upside-down trees”). They can also survive for thousands of years in the hot, dry climate of the African savannah, a feature that led to another one of their names, “tree of life.”

So it does not come as a surprise that they bear equally amazing fruits. Known as “monkey bread” (because the animals snack on them), Baobab fruits look like gourds and from a distance one could mistake them for sleeping bats—which is fitting, since their flowers are actually pollinated by bats.

If you crack open their hard, green or brownish shell, you’ll find a soft, whitish pulp with kidney-shaped seeds. This pulp is rich in nutrients like calcium, fiber, and vitamin C. That’s why its juice, bouye in Senegal’s Wolof language, is believed to cure anything from dysentery to fever.

And how does this super-juice taste? According to one blogger, bouye has a mildly tropical flavor and “tastes like sunshine, flowers, and summer fruits.”