Fresh-Tapped · Forest Drink
Le Bandji
Photo: BeraDigle / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Bandji has to be drunk within hours of tapping — left overnight, it keeps fermenting on its own and turns noticeably more sour and alcoholic by the next morning.
Sap tapped straight from oil or raphia palms is collected in gourds and drunk fresh, still faintly sweet, lightly fizzy and only mildly alcoholic. Tappers sell it by the roadside in villages around San-Pédro's palm forests, often within hours of collection.
Why it's made this way: Palm wine tapping is a longstanding livelihood across Ivory Coast's forested southwest, where the dense oil-palm groves that supply cooking oil also supply this everyday drink.
More from Ivory Coast
Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.