Porridge

🇷🇸Serbia

Boiled Wheat with Walnuts

Кољиво

Boiled wheat berries mixed with ground walnut and sugar, blessed in church and shared at Slava and memorial services.

🇰🇲Comoros

Boko-Boko

A Comorian wheat or grain porridge enriched with meat, ghee and warm spices for feast days.

🇧🇯Benin

Bomiwô

A ceremonial Beninese maize paste, cooked into a smooth, firm dough for communal meals and Vodun observances.

🇿🇼Zimbabwe

Bota

Thin maize or millet porridge cooked for breakfast and flavoured with peanut butter, milk, sugar or a knob of butter.

🇨🇲Cameroon

Bouillie

Bouillie de maïs

Maize or millet flour cooked into a thin sweet porridge with sugar, milk and sometimes nutmeg, drunk warm from a bowl.

🇪🇭Adrar-Tagant (Date Oases / Taguella), Western Sahara

Boulghmane

Dgig lmegli

Boulghmane is toasted barley flour mixed with sugar, salt, water, and clarified butter or camel-hump fat into a dense paste or hand-formed balls, a western-Sahara pastoral travel food.

🇵🇱Lesser Poland, Poland

Bryjka

A simple highland porridge of flour boiled in salted water, served with lard or oil. One of the oldest Podhale dishes, a rustic, humble staple, a shepherd's traditional food, served hot.

🇱🇾Libya

Bsisa

Toasted barley and chickpea flour ground with fenugreek and spices, worked into a paste with olive oil and date syrup or drunk stirred into water.

🇲🇾Malaysia

Bubur Lambuk

Ramadan porridge with rice, meat, and spices, distributed at mosques during breaking of fast.

🇸🇮Slovenia

Buckwheat Groats

Ajdova kaša

Whole buckwheat groats boiled and dressed with mushrooms, cracklings or milk — the starch of the Slovenian uplands before potatoes.

🇷🇺Russia

Buckwheat Kasha

Каша

Buckwheat kasha: roasted groats simmered until fluffy and nutty, the default hot side of Russian home cooking.

🇧🇮Burundi

Bugali

Ubugali

Stiff maize-flour dough cooked by stirring into boiling water until it forms a firm, smooth mass; the primary carbohydrate base of the Burundian meal, eaten by hand to scoop up stews and sauces.

🇪🇹Ethiopia

Bula Genfo

ቡላ ገንፎ

A porridge made from bula — fine starch powder extracted from the enset ('false banana') plant. A foundational dish of southern Ethiopian cuisine, richer and smoother than barley genfo, served with spiced butter.

🇷🇸Serbia

Bulgarian Popara

Попара

A Bulgarian breakfast of stale bread or kozunak soaked in hot milk, tea or yogurt, with crumbled sirene cheese and a knob of butter.

🇪🇹Ethiopia

Bulla

ቡላ

A thick Ethiopian porridge made from enset starch, cooked smooth and served with spiced butter or cheese.

🇨🇳Guangdong, China

Cantonese Congee

粥

Rice simmered for hours until the grains dissolve into a smooth white cream, then flavoured with fish slices, preserved egg and pork, or beef balls.

🇲🇷Eastern Mauritania (Hodh / Assaba Pastoral), Mauritania

Carow

Light porridge of large-grain millet or sorghum couscous served with milk; a festive dish among the Soninké community, eaten at celebrations and as a sweet breakfast; the grains are steamed until fluffy and served in a bowl of fresh or curdled milk.

🇹🇩Chad

Cassava Ball

Boule de Manioc

Chadian cassava porridge; cassava flour cooked with water into a thick, stiff dough; similar to boule but made from cassava instead of millet; a staple in southern Chad where cassava grows abundantly; served with sauces and stews; torn by hand and used to scoop sauce.

🇨🇫Central African Republic

Cassava Fufu

Gozo

A dense, sticky paste of fermented cassava flour cooked into a smooth dough; torn into pieces and used to scoop up sauces and stews across the Central African Republic.

🇬🇦Gabon

Cassava Porridge

Puree de manioc

Cassava tubers soaked, pounded into a white paste, and cooked into a porridge; served for breakfast or dessert with peanuts, sugar, or salt; a drinkable meal for adults and children.

🇱🇷Liberia

Cassava Swallow

Dumboy

Fresh cassava is boiled, stripped of its fibers, pounded in a mortar, and shaped into smooth balls served with pepper soup, palm butter, or another wet stew.

🇹🇩Chad

Chadian Porridge

La Bouillie

Traditional Chadian breakfast cereal served hot; made with rice or wheat combined with milk, flour, and peanut butter; boiled to a thick consistency; ingredients vary by household; a comforting morning staple; a TasteAtlas-listed must-try; the breakfast that fuels Chad's mornings.

🇬🇺Guam

Champulado

Champulado is a chocolate rice porridge cooked until the grains are soft and creamy, often sweetened and served warm as a Chamorro comfort food.

🇻🇳Vietnam

Chao Long

Cháo lòng

Vietnamese pork offal congee with pork intestines, liver, blood cake, and ginger, garnished with fried dough sticks and herbs.

🇵🇭Philippines

Chicken Congee

Arroz Caldo

Arroz caldo is Filipino rice porridge simmered with ginger, garlic, and chicken, then finished with scallions, toasted garlic, calamansi, and sometimes saffron-coloured annatto.

🇰🇷South Korea

Chicken Porridge

닭죽

A comforting rice porridge with shredded chicken, sesame oil, and chicken broth, easy to digest and nourishing.

🇲🇪Durmitor, Montenegro

Cicvara

Maize flour cooked into skorup or kajmak rather than water, beaten until the fat separates and pools golden on the surface.

🇵🇹Algarve, Portugal

Clam Xerém

Xerém de conquilhas

Coarse cornmeal is simmered with small Algarve clams, garlic, coriander, and their briny cooking liquor.

🇹🇴Tonga

Coconut Flour Porridge

Heu heu

Tongan heu-heu is a soft porridge made by cooking flour with water and boiled coconut milk, producing a smooth, gently sweet preparation.

🇨🇩DR Congo

Congolese Fufu

Fufu

The staple food of the Congo — a smooth, dense, slightly elastic dough made from cassava flour, corn flour, or sometimes plantains; rolled into golf-ball-sized balls and dipped into stews; the proper way to eat it is to pinch off a piece with the right hand, indent with the thumb, and scoop up sauce; present on all Congolese tables from north to south; the universal accompaniment.

🇨🇲Cameroon

Corn Fufu

Fufu corn

Maize flour stirred into boiling water into a stiff yellow mound, the everyday starch of the North-West and West.

🇦🇼Aruba

Cornmeal Polenta

Funchi

Funchi; a cornmeal polenta-like side dish; one of the three core ingredients of Aruban cuisine; served with nearly every stew; a legacy of indigenous Arawak corn cultivation; a gluten-free corn-based side; designed to balance strong stew flavors

🇯🇲Jamaica

Cornmeal Porridge

Cog

A creamy Jamaican breakfast porridge of fine cornmeal simmered with milk, condensed milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and bay leaf, a comforting morning staple.

🇦🇼Aruba

Cornmeal with Black Beans

Tutu

Tutu; a cornmeal and mashed black-eyed pea side dish; a gluten-free corn-based side; beans and sugar cooked into funchi; a staple of Aruban cuisine; served with stews to balance strong flavors; appears at traditional meals

🇬🇪Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, Georgia

Cornmeal with Sulguni

Ელარჯი

Coarse cornmeal cooked to a stiff porridge and beaten with a great deal of sulguni until the whole mass strings like melted cheese.

🇧🇧Barbados

Cou-Cou

Cornmeal cooked with sliced okra and okra water, beaten hard with a wooden cou-cou stick until glossy and smooth, then shaped in a buttered bowl.