Growing Food: A Guide to Food Production

UTILISATION

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mixed with oil or butter to make a kind of porridge, or roasted in oil; or green

(immature), eaten fresh or boiled or grilled. In Zimbabwe and Ghana the grain

is canned on a commercial scale. The mature grain can be fed to animals after it

LIMITATIONS

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  or ground into a powder before it is edible.

  
  

Buffalo Gourd

Cucurbita foetidissima

Gourd, Wild Pumpkin, Mock Orange. Calabazilla (Amarga), Chilicote (Spanish)

North American Indians living in hot dry regions have used the Buffalo Gourd for
thousands of years, as a food source, for washing clothes, cleaning animal skins, as
ritualistic rattles and others (see “Utilisation”).
The potential of this plant to produce oil and protein in very marginal areas has
been recognised in recent years. Buffalo Gourds can produce similar yields to
soybeans or groundnuts, but they do so in extremely hot and arid regions where
conventional crops would die. The plants can survive with virtually no cultivation or
effort by man.

Each plant produces about 50 hard-shelled, spherical fruits, either mainly yellow or
mainly green with yellow stripes or markings, which are inedible but contain pulp

Buffalo Gourds are also a form of root crop; the tubers can grow to an enormous
size, up to 150 kg, which may reach down 5 m or more in search of water. The roots
contain about 56% starch. The plant can therefore be viewed as a dual-purpose crop,
being both a root crop and an oilseed crop.

Coyote Gourd, Fetid Gourd, Missouri Gourd, Prairie Gourd, Stinking Gourd, Wild

and white, flat seeds. The seeds are about 12 mm long and 7 mm wide and contain
30–35% protein and up to 34% oil; seed yields of 2500 kg/ha are easily obtained.

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Grain—eaten in various ways, either ripe (mature), pounded into flour and

has been soaked in water.

Whole green pods—can be washed and boiled, and eaten either as a vegetable

or used in soups. Easier and quicker to prepare than the mature grain.

Roasted, ground meal—can be used as a coffee substitute.

Haulm—a good animal food, containing about 16% protein.

Limited availability of tested, improved varieties of Bambara Groundnuts, and

indeed of any seed at all.

Many of the available varieties are only adapted to a small geographical area, so

new varieties introduced to an area should be thoroughly tested first.

During storage the grain is susceptible to both insect and fungal attack.

The oil content is low, about 6% (4.5–6.5%).

The mature dry grain is indigestible and hard and must be boiled for a long time

GROWING FOOD – THE FOOD PRODUCTION HANDBOOK

The flowers are bright yellow, up to about 10 cm wide, pollinated by insects.