Akumè

the Ewe maize swallow, fermented dough beaten smooth over a low fire until it is dense enough to be pinched and dipped

Origin: Lomé & southern Togo

From the journey of Corn.

Akumè is the everyday starch of the Ewe of southern Togo, and the distinction that matters to a Togolese cook is what is not in it. Ghanaian banku a short way west is made from fermented maize dough cut with cassava dough, which makes it softer and slightly sweeter. Akumè is maize alone, and the result is firmer, sourer, and cleaner-tasting. Both are beaten over heat until smooth and both are eaten by hand with a sauce, and neither country would accept the other's version as its own. The fermentation is what makes it food rather than porridge. Maize is soaked, milled wet, and left for two or three days until the dough turns distinctly sour, which preserves it in a hot climate, makes the grain easier to digest, and supplies the acidity that the very rich sauces of the region are built to be eaten against. This is the same technique applied across the whole Guinea Coast: Beninese akassa, Ghanaian kenkey, and akumè are all fermented maize under different names and different degrees of cooking. Maize itself is American and reached the Bight of Benin with the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. The souring technique long predates it and was applied to sorghum and millet first; the new grain simply arrived and slid into a method that was already waiting. It is eaten with gboma dessi, with groundnut sauce, and with okra, and the correct portion is judged by the sauce rather than by appetite.

Ingredients

  • 800 g white maize meal, medium grind
  • 2 litres water, plus more for the ferment
  • 1 tsp salt

Method

  1. Put the maize meal in a large bowl, cover with cold water by 5cm, stir, cover with a cloth, and leave at room temperature.
  2. Ferment for three days, stirring once a day. Water will separate on top and the smell will turn sharply sour. In a cool kitchen allow four days.
  3. Pour off the surface water and stir the settled dough smooth. Divide it in two.
  4. Bring 1.2 litres of water to the boil with the salt. Whisk in half the dough and cook, stirring hard with a wooden spoon, until it thickens into a stiff smooth paste, about twelve minutes.
  5. Add the remaining raw dough a spoonful at a time, beating each addition in completely before the next. This is heavy work and the arm doing it is the reason the texture is right.
  6. Keep beating over a low heat for a further fifteen minutes. The dough will pull away from the sides of the pan in one mass, take on a glossy sheen, and stop tasting of raw flour.
  7. Test it by pinching off a piece: it should hold its shape, dent cleanly under a thumb, and not stick to the fingers.
  8. Shape into smooth balls with a wet hand or a wet cloth and serve hot, one ball per person, with a sauce.

Notes

Beating rather than stirring is the technique, and the difference is visible in the finished ball: an under-beaten akumè is grainy and falls apart when pinched. Do not add all the raw dough at once. The ferment cannot be substituted with an acid, and if a pink or fuzzy growth appears, discard it. Leftover akumè firms considerably when cold and is usually resteamed rather than reheated in a pan.

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