Global food category
410 traditional foods, ingredients, and local specialties connected by one appetite.
Masimasi
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410 foods match this view. Narrow them by country, type, rarity, or name.
Solomon Islands
Slippery cabbage (aibika) with mashed ngali nut, wrapped in banana leaves and baked in a motu (earth oven); a traditional vegetarian dish combining the nutritious green with the rich, almond-like ngali nut; a specialty of the Kastom Gaden tradition.
Mozambique
Young cassava leaves pounded to a pulp and cooked slowly with ground peanuts, coconut milk, garlic and often prawns or crab.
Mauritius
Chop suey
Chicken or prawn stir-fried with cabbage, carrot and beansprout in a light cornflour-thickened sauce, eaten over rice in Sino-Mauritian canteens.
Kenya
A Kenyan sautéed spinach or amaranth greens with onions and tomatoes, a daily and home classic
Tanzania
Amaranth leaves cooked down with onion, tomato, coconut milk and often groundnut paste.
Greece
Μελιτζάνες τηγανητές
Greek fried eggplant slices, dredged in flour or batter and fried until golden. A meze and taverna classic, crispy and savory, served with tzatziki or feta, a summer dish.
Kerala, India
മെഴുക്കുപുരട്ടി
A Kerala style of stir-frying vegetables with chili, turmeric, and oil. It is simple and commonly made at home.
Sarawak, Malaysia
Midin Goreng sautés Sarawak's tender wild fern shoots with aromatics, often belacan or garlic.
Malawi
Tender pumpkin leaves peeled to remove the fuzzy coating, then simmered with tomatoes, onions, and groundnut flour until thick and creamy; one of the most common ndiwo relishes in Malawi.
Tanzania
Okra or jute leaves cooked down into a deliberately slippery green relish eaten with ugali.
Silesia, Poland
Silesian braised red cabbage with onions, sugar, vinegar, and sometimes bacon. A sweet-tangy side dish, the third element of the Silesian 'łobiod' meal, served with rolada.
Puerto Rico
Mofongo is fried plantain or yuca pounded with garlic and crackling, a shared Puerto Rican–Dominican dish with contested origin claims.
South Africa
Morogo
A South African dish of wild African spinach (morogo) cooked with onions, garlic, and sometimes peanuts. A national and traditional staple, herby and savory, a healthy and rural dish, a comfort and home classic
Malawi
Malawian leafy greens cooked with groundnut flour into a thick relish for nsima.
Kenya
Jute mallow leaves cooked into a slightly mucilaginous Kenyan vegetable relish.
Zimbabwe
Young pumpkin leaves and their shoots stripped of their fibrous skin, boiled and finished with peanut butter or tomato.
Zimbabwe
Vegetables — covo, pumpkin leaf, okra, cowpea leaves — blanched and sun-dried in the harvest months to be rehydrated through the dry season.
DR Congo
Dongo-dongo
Okra dish, also known as dongo-dongo; listed in Wikipedia's Congolese cuisine; okra is cooked into a viscous, slippery sauce with onions, tomatoes, and palm oil; similar to sauce gombo across West Africa; served with fufu, chikwangue, or rice; a traditional Congolese vegetable dish; the okra dish of the Congo; the slippery texture is the tell.
Zimbabwe
Covo, rape or pumpkin leaves boiled down with onion and tomato and finished with a large spoonful of peanut butter until the sauce thickens and turns russet.
Turkey
Kabak mücveri
Fritters made by mixing grated zucchini with eggs, flour, herbs (dill, parsley, mint), and sometimes cheese, then pan-frying until golden. Served warm with yogurt or lemon, mücver is a popular summer dish and vegetarian meze across Turkey.
Uganda
A leafy nightshade green with a slightly bitter, mineral flavour, steamed or cooked with groundnut paste.
Bhutan
ན་ཀེ།
Fiddlehead fern shoots picked wild in spring and stir-fried with cheese or chilli, tasting green and faintly bitter.
Japan
茄子田楽
Nasu dengaku, aubergine halves glazed with sweetened miso and grilled, is a named Japanese dish with a fixed identity.
Malawi
The relish or side dish served with nsima in Malawi; usually a cooked vegetable — pumpkin leaves, amaranth, cassava leaves, or beans — sometimes enriched with dried fish, groundnuts, or a little meat.
Kenya
Ndũma
A Kikuyu boiled or fried arrowroot (taro), a daily and breakfast classic
Scotland, United Kingdom
Swede and potato boiled and mashed separately, buttered and heavily peppered, the fixed accompaniment to haggis.
Kenya
A Kikuyu boiled or fried sweet potato, a daily and breakfast classic
Cameroon
Huckleberry leaves cooked down with onion, oil and sometimes tomato into a dark, faintly bitter green side.
Malawi
Tender leaves from bean plants cooked as a simple green relish with tomatoes, onions, and a little groundnut flour; a mild, everyday ndiwo in Malawi.
Mexico
The cleaned, sliced pads of the prickly pear cactus, used raw in salads, grilled, or simmered until tender.
Japan
海苔
Dried seaweed sheets pressed from red algae, used for sushi, onigiri, and garnishes.
Malawi
A Malawian vegetable relish of local greens simmered with onion and groundnut.
Peru
A colorful Andean tuber with a lightly sweet flavor, eaten fresh, dried or cooked in highland kitchens.
Monaco, Monaco
Oignons à la monégasque
Small pickling onions sautéed and glazed with wine vinegar, tomato paste, and raisins; a sweet-and-sour appetizer or side dish from Monaco; the vinegar and raisins give a distinctive agrodolce flavour profile from the Italian influence.
DR Congo
Gnetum leaves shredded to threads and cooked with palm oil, ground peanuts or bush mango, eaten with cassava sticks.
Lebanon
بامية بزيت
Small whole okra stewed with tomato, garlic and coriander in olive oil until soft, eaten cold with bread and lemon.