Where I come from, some people use particular wood ashes to make an ingredient used for cooking. They soak the ask in water, let it settle and decant the liquid, discard the residue. I have never known the real content since I'm not so much of a scientist, but we add a bit of this liquid to pumpkin leaves or bean leaves or a few other vegetables when cooking and later add g nuts paste and tomatoes and let the pasted vegetable cook further.
It gives it a certain characteristic traditional taste and also, for vegetables like the leaves of some type of peas, it makes the vegetable tender.
Some people also use it to soak dry beans for a long time to make them softer and easier to cook...
Lots of cooking uses in my village and women always have the liquid of the kind in their kitchen, but prepared from selected materials. Mostly from dried and burnt banana peelings or bean pods, but also from some particular woods of edible plants.
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