The Day We Made Juice

So I'm behind on blogging.  These pictures are from...like, three-and-a-half weeks ago.

 

Anyway...

 

Once upon a time, us girls from the language center got together and Rachel showed us how she makes bissap and bouye.

 

Disclaimer: this post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease be a step-by-step explanation of how to make said juices.  It's simply a bunch of photos from that afternoon.

 

 

Here we are, removing the extra fibers from the bouye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most of said fibers ended up on the floor.

 

After we'd sorted through the fruit, we put it in water to soak while we ate.

 

 

Menu: Stromboli made by Benedicte and yours truly.  (And pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.  Not that I'm bragging here.  I mean, it had cheese, and I can hardly take credit for the inherent deliciousness of cheese.) 

 

 

 

After lunch we got back to work.

 

 

 

Here Rachel is rinsing the bissap.

 

 

So after the bouye had been soaking for a while, we started working it with our hands, so the powder (which we use for the juice) would come off the seeds.

 

 

 

It totally looks like Rachel is either about to ambush Marie-Claude or give her a hug.  Neither of which were true. :)

 

 

 

 

 Not everyone was done eating, apparently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good times.  Good friends.  Fun memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two buckets, five sets of hands, four countries.
 

 

After working the bouye to the point where pretty much all the powder was off the seeds, we strained the liquid and tossed the seeds.

 

 

 

 

 

It was quite a process.  Not complicated, just time-consuming.  Oh, and we had to keep adding water because the "juice" was so thick it didn't strain very easily.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our kitchen, the salon. :)

 

 

The bissap leaves (or technically flowers) were boiled along with mint leaves...

...then strained.
 

 

 

Here we're opening packets of guava juice powder to add to the bouye for flavor.

 

 

 

 

Benedicte is stirring the guava powder with powdered milk and a bit of water before adding it to the juice.

 

 

"A little more water in there, Lily!"

 

Sorry.  That was a line from a science video my sisters and I watched when we were kids.

 

  

Sniffing one of the aromes (extracts/flavorings) - coconut, corossol, orange blossom, vanilla - we added to the bouye.
 

 

 

And we wrapped up the afternoon with a birthday cake for Janel - chocolate, of course.  Because that's the only kind of cake.

...So my mom told us repeatedly when we were growing up.  When I was little I actually believed her.  It was traumatic to realize chocolate wasn't actually the only cake, and I had been deceived.

I still haven't quite got over it.