page_title: Basankusu
section_title: Local food
hierarchical_section_title: Basankusu / Local food
caption_attribution_description: English: A girl delivers 'kwanga' - Cassava bread - wrapped in banana leaves. Basankusu, DRC.
context_page_description: Basankusu is a town in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the main town and administrative centre of the Basankusu Territory. In 2004, it had an estimated population of 23,764. It has a gravel airstrip, covered and open markets, a hospital, and three cellphone networks, the first of which was installed in 2006. The town is also known as a centre for bonobo conservation efforts. Despite such developments, most inhabitants live at a subsistence level: hunting, fishing, keeping chickens and keeping a vegetable plot. In 2010, the workers at the local palm plantation would earn an average monthly salary of $40, most others would have much less.
  The location of the town on the Lulonga River, a tributary of the Congo, at the confluence of the Lopori and Maringa Rivers has contributed to its success as a centre for trade in the region. Set deep in tropical rainforest, the rivers serve as the highways for transport of people as well as goods.
context_section_description: Cassava (yuca), which originated in South America and the Caribbean, is the staple food in Basankusu. The roots are made into cassava bread, known as kwanga, and other cassava-based dishes. The leaves are also used as a green vegetable and are compared to spinach for taste and texture.
  Moambe mwambi or mwambe (Lingala: mwǎmba), is the name given to the sauce of palm oil or peanuts. Moambe chicken is also considered a national dish. The chicken meat is coated in the rich moambe sauce and is usually accompanied by rice, cooked cassava leaves (mpondu), and chili pepper (pili-pili).
  The people of Basankusu usually keep vegetable gardens away from the town itself. They are cut into the forest and fit the slash and burn model of farming. These plots of land are often only partially cleared, with house-sized termite hills and the trunks of felled trees left to supply firewood for the year's cooking. Cassava is the main crop. It can be grown for the table as well as for the market-place. Peanuts, maize, papaya, pineapples, avocados, oil palms, and other fruits and vegetables are also grown.
  Maize, although sold steaming hot as a fast food in the market, is primarily produced for alcohol production. Heads of corn are cut up and boiled into a mash, which is then fermented and distilled using improvised stills made from cut oil drums. Because of the woody core of the cobs of corn, the alcohol produced contains high levels of methanol, which is toxic. It is known as lotoko or bompulo.
  Palm wine, on the other hand, is made from the sap of a wild palm tree, is fermented by natural yeasts, and gives an alcohol content of between five and seven percent.
  The marketplace is a place for buying and selling locally grown foods and also foodstuffs from further afield, which have come up the river from centres of import, such as Kinshasa. Bananas, palm nuts, onions, cassava, and cassava leaves are sold — as well as some seasonal extras such as the savoury African plum (safu) and caterpillars (mbinzo) (similar to the Mopane worms of Zimbabwe). Bread, produced in cottage bakeries, is available, as is locally grown and imported rice, although neither of these products is comparable to cassava in popularity.
  Meat often comes from hunting. Conservation groups are concerned that, with the rise in the human population, many animal species are in danger of extinction because of the trade in bushmeat. Chimpanzee, bonobo, wild boar, monkey, antelope, and other wild animals are often sold in the market or at impromptu stalls around the town. In 1998, Jeff Dupain and others catalogued the types of bushmeat available in the two main Basankusu markets; they interviewed the stallholders to find out where the animals were hunted. Many people keep livestock around the family home. Chickens, pigs, and, less frequently, sheep and goats provide fresh food and a source of income.
  The rivers provide a great variety of fish, and locals often spend several days at a time fishing from improvised fishing villages along the river.
caption: A girl delivers 'kwanga' – Cassava bread – wrapped in banana leaves. Basankusu, DRC.
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