Le Bouyon Wara

The “Bouyon wara”  is a creole spelling to say the “Bouillon d’Awara” (Awara broth). It is a special dish which belongs to the Easter/Pentecost tradition in French Guyana. It can only be prepared when the fruit of the Awara palm tree (Astrocaryum Vulgare) is ripe and this happen at this very period of the year.

 The Awara  fruit  is yellow/orange and looks more or less like a large date. Heavy clusters are hanging under the leaves at the top of the tree.  It can be eaten raw. The bone of the fruit is large, the flesh, rich in vitamin A  has an apricot-like taste and the skin is not edible. The root has depurative properties, but if one looks into more details, this palm tree has still other  pharmaceutical properties.

The principle of this recipe is to prepare a soup made of crushed Awara fruits  in a large pot. The pot is set outdoors on an open wood fire and covered with a large corrugated  plate. Pieces of  smoked chicken and fish as well as pork (pig tails and groins) are added in this preparation. Then it is cooked for several hours. The final preparation looks thick and orange. If  the taste is not frankly spicy, it is slightly salted and  the dominant taste is the smoked resulting mostly from the long cooking. Rice is usually served as a side dish.

One can easily realise that the complete preparation of this broth will take all together more than a day:  preparation and crushing of the fruit for 100 litres of  broth, cutting the meat and fish and the very long stewing up to 36 hours!.

When eventually it is ready, separate dishes may be prepared form the main pot: one for the pork, one for the chicken one for the bacon and one for the fish as represented below:

 As said above, the bouillon wara is a tradition and therefore a unique opportunity to gather all the family like today for Easter, or to organise a nice social event within friends.

Never forget this old saying: "if you eat the Awara broth, in Guyana you will come back!"