Guinea

🇬🇳Guinea

Latchiri Kossan

Millet or fonio served with tangy sour milk in a traditional Guinean breakfast preparation.

🇬🇳Guinea

Maffi Gombo

Guinean okra sauce thickened until glossy and served with rice or tô, often with meat or fish.

🇬🇳Guinea

Maffi Hakko Bantura

A Guinean sweet-potato-leaf sauce cooked with aromatics and served with a staple starch.

🇬🇳Guinea

Maffi Taku

A Guinean sauce preparation built around okra, aromatics and meat or fish.

🇬🇳Kankan, Guinea

Mafé Kankan

A unique peanut stew with lamb, tomatoes, and vegetables; the signature dish of Kankan; found only in this Upper Guinean city; richer and more spiced than standard mafé.

🇲🇱Mali

Mashed Plantain

Foutou banane

A Malian dish of mashed plantains; a staple that has spread beyond Mali to other West African countries; believed to have originated from Ivory Coast; plantains are boiled and pounded into a smooth, thick paste; served with sauces; high in vitamins and minerals; a filling and nutritious dish; popular in southern Mali.

🇲🇱Mali

Millet and Curd Milk

Dégué

A Malian dish of millet couscous mixed with curdled milk; a Bambara specialty; listed in the Mali tourism document as a traditional dish; the millet is steamed and then mixed with fresh curdled milk and sugar; a refreshing, nutritious snack or breakfast; found at street stalls and markets

🇲🇱Mali

Nététou

Dawa Dawa

African locust bean seeds fermented for days and pressed into dark balls with a pungent, savoury smell.

🇬🇲Guinée Forestière (Nzérékoré / Forest), The Gambia

Palm Wine

Emu

Sap tapped from a palm tree and fermenting from the moment it is collected — milky, sweet in the morning, sour and stronger by evening.

🇧🇫Burkina Faso

Ragout d'Igname

Ragoût d'igname

A yam stew with beef, garlic, ginger, onions, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes in a tomato-onion base thickened with dried prawns; a hearty Burkinabè comfort dish.

🇹🇬Togo

Riz Gras

Rice cooked in a tomato, onion and pepper base with meat or fish until it takes the colour and the fat of the sauce.

🇲🇱Mali

Sauce d'Arachide

A Malian peanut sauce served over tô or rice; listed in Wikipedia's Malian cuisine; meat simmered in a rich peanut sauce with tomatoes, onions, and spices; similar to tigadeguena but may vary in preparation; a foundational sauce of Malian cuisine; the peanut is the defining ingredient; a hearty, nutty, and satisfying dish.

🇬🇳Haute-Guinée (Kankan / Malinké), Guinea

Sauce Gbanbouda

Lamb and okra in a peanut butter base with smoked fish, served with tô; a classic Mandingo dish from Upper Guinea; rich and hearty.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Sauce Gombo

Fresh okra grated to a slippery green sauce with smoked fish, pepper and sometimes soumbara, eaten by drawing threads of it up with a ball of foutou.

🇲🇱Mali

Sauce Gombo

A sticky, viscous okra sauce served over tô or rice; the okra is pounded to release its mucilage, creating the characteristic slippery texture; a beloved Malian sauce also called 'sauce noire' (black sauce); one of the most common sauces in Malian cuisine; eaten with meat or fish; the texture is the tell of a good version.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Sauce Graine

Palm nuts boiled and pounded, the pulp strained and cooked down with fish, crab or beef until the bright red oil rises to the top.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Soumbara

Locust beans fermented for days into hard, black, pungent balls that are crumbled into sauces as a savoury base.

🇬🇲The Gambia

Tapalapa

Dense brown bread of millet, maize and wheat flour baked in wood-fired ovens into long, heavy loaves.

🇬🇲The Gambia

Thiakry

Caakiri

Steamed millet couscous stirred into sweetened curdled milk with vanilla and nutmeg, served cold.

🇲🇷Nouakchott, Mauritania

Thieboudienne

Ceebu jën

Broken rice cooked in a tomato and fish stock with a whole fish stuffed with parsley, garlic and chilli, plus cassava, carrot, cabbage and aubergine.

🇲🇱Mali

Tiguadege Na

Tigadɛgɛna

The national dish of Mali — a creamy peanut stew with beef, chicken, or meatballs simmered in peanut butter with tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and chili; the Bambara name means 'peanut butter sauce'; served with rice or millet tô; a rich, hearty dish central to Malian cuisine and celebrations.

🇲🇱Mali

Tô

The staple food of Mali — a stiff porridge or swallow made from millet, sorghum, or rice flour; cooked by stirring flour into boiling water until thick and smooth; eaten with the right hand and dipped into various sauces (gumbo, baobab leaf, peanut, tomato); the foundation of every Malian meal; Bambara and Dogon people eat it morning, noon, and night.

🇬🇲The Gambia

Yassa

Poulet yassa

Chicken or fish marinated in lemon, mustard and onion, grilled, then simmered in a great quantity of the same onions until they collapse.