Cameroon – Achu

by Haman Kingah

A river surrounded with many obstacles! Achu was considered as a river surrounded with many obstacles. The river is said to be soup and the Achu, that is pounded cocoyam’s and Banana that surrounds the soup, then the meat, canda, towel, and may be vegetable. This is a complete heavy dish. Serve and eating in Cameroon by nearly everyone, though not all. This is a delicacy that was introduced by the Mankon people, in Cameroon, precisely from the NW region of Cameroon to be précised incase the reader will want to trace the origin of the cuisine. Achu has a lot of earth nutrients both from plants and the soil that makes the soup so delicious. The soup recently helps to clean the system as well as It prevents you from getting drunk quickly or after getting drunk, you could drink Achu soup to relieve yourself from the drunkenness.

Preparing this dish is easy, when it comes to the soup making, but that is after you have already known how to prepare it. Lol. So, make sure you take your time to understand what is written, assimilate before practicing. Careless errors could end you up in the toilet for a long time. 

According to the Mankon tradition, this meal is eating with the hands or rather fingers and with no cutleries. For those who may not know how to use their hands in burring the Achu, they could use a spoon with a flat plate. A flat plate is better, but you can use a deep plate too. Not to deep though. To prepare this meal, follow guide below;

Ingredients

• Achu banana (the banana is usually fat and short).
• Niki (lime stone)
• Pepper
• Cocoyam’s 
• Meat 
• Dry fish 
• Canda (caw skin)
• Palm oil (red oil) 
• Maggi 
• Salt to taste 

Procedure

• Start by washing, slicing then boil your meat. Make sure you wash your caw skin well. Boil with salt to taste. The water for your caw skin should be thrown, while that for your meat kept, because it is stock and it is very nutritional. This will be used to add in your soup. 

• The types of meat used during preparing of Achu soup, really matters. It beautifies the entire meal. So, make sure you have towel, dry meat, caw skin, intestine, etc. 

• Boil your Cocoyam’s and Banana. Pawn using a mortal and pestle. Make sure you start with the Cocoyam’s first, after you do that you add your bananas. This is because if you pawn and keep your bananas for so long, it could get cold and harden. 

• After you done with the careful long pawning, set your Achu aside. 
• Dilute your Niki in water. After it has dissolved, drain to remove stones and sand. 
• Put your main cooking pot on fire, add your palm oil and heat up. Remove the pot from the heat or turn off the heat after about 10min when the oil is heated up.
• Add your Niki into the oil. Make sure you do that while tasting. Don’t put more than what is required. 
• What you will observe when pouring your limestone into the oil is that, the oil will start becoming yellow. The limestone acts like a colorant. When the right color is attained, stop applying. Stair well. Add your salt and Maggi to taste. 
• Add your ground white pepper. 
• Add your red and yellow pepper. 
• Add your meat with stock. Stair. Add your caw skin, towel, intestine etc. stair well for like 10min, serve. 

• Bore your Achu. Put your meat and rest of the ingredients around. Then put you Achu soup in the middle.  You could serve the meal with some cooked vegetable, or garden-eggs.

Good Appetite…