Cissus polpunea

I am Chris @onuhkris, your humble, ever-ready and hardworking dude. Do not be taken aback by the choice of story I have chosen this moment. I come from the Idoma speaking region of Benue State in Nigeria; a state with predominantly two major tribes; Idomas and Tivs.

Cissus populnea is a plant from which gum extract is obtained. This plant is commonly found in forest areas of tropical Nigeria (middle belt area: Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Kogi states). The stem, which I am going to beam my searchlight on has medicinal and edible values to man and animals. My tribe (the Idomas) refer to this gum extract for thickening of soup as 'Okoho.'

Dear steemians, without lengthy discussion on this plant, below are photos of this plant which both stem and leaves have proven to be of great value to indigenes from this part of Nigeria.

Cissus populnea stem and leaves
Credit: Google Images

Cissus populnea stem only
Credit: Google Images

Steps in Preparation of Cissus populnea Stem Extract ('Okoho' soup)

The ‘okoho’ stem was scraped, cleaned, peeled and sliced into pieces and placed in hot water to enable the elastic texture to come out by applying consistent pressure through squeezing with hand.

Steps

Okoho stem

Scraping

Cleaning

Dicing/slicing

Squeezing

Okoho liquid extract

Having successfully carried out the above steps, put a pot containing 1000 ml of water on fire and allow to boil. Add the soup ingredients. Then add the 'okoho' extract and stir very well. The soup should be allowed to cook for 15 - 20 minutes.

Samples of Okoho Soup (in pictures)

In summary, don't just sit there and salivate. Try it out and testify for yourself the unimaginable tongue-watering encounter we always experience when we sip the 'okoho' soup.

Please steemians, I solicit for your upvotes and comments if you are impressed with my story.