South Sudan

🇸🇩Sudan

Agashe

Strips of beef coated in a groundnut and chilli powder and grilled over coals on skewers.

🇸🇩Sudan

Aradeb

Tamarind pulp soaked and strained into a dark, sour drink served very cold, often at iftar.

🇸🇩Sudan

Araqi

A clear spirit distilled illegally from fermented dates, drunk neat in the countryside and at private gatherings.

🇪🇬Egypt

Bamia

بامية

A Egyptian okra stew with beef or lamb in tomato and garlic sauce, a daily and home classic

🇸🇸South Sudan

Bamia wa Lahm

Bamia

South Sudanese okra stew with meat in an onion-tomato base; okra pods simmered until the stew thickens to a silky consistency; goat or beef used; flavored with garlic and spices; served with asida or kisra; roots in Middle Eastern cooking.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Bamiya

Okra simmered with meat, onion and tomato in a South Sudanese home-style stew.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Basico

A South Sudanese savoury stew of meat, onion and local spice served with a staple starch.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Blood Stew

Tama

Traditional Mundari and Dinka dish made from fresh cattle blood, sometimes mixed with milk or meat; the blood is collected from living cattle and cooked into a dark, iron-rich stew; a survival food and cultural marker of cattle-herding tribes; not for the faint-hearted.

🇸🇩Sudan

Bussaara

Dried okra and meat cooked with peanut butter and niaimiya into a thick brown stew served over asida or kisra.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Cassava Fritters

Deep-fried patties of grated cassava, sometimes mixed with onions and spices; crispy outside, soft and starchy inside; sold at street stalls and markets; a popular snack in more densely populated areas where cassava is abundant.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Cassava Leaves Stew

Kwang

Thick green stew made from pounded cassava leaves, cooked with peanuts, onions, and spices; slightly bitter; a staple in equatorial South Sudan where cassava grows abundantly; served with rice, kisra, or asida; similar to West African cassava leaf stews.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Combo

South Sudanese stew of spinach, peanut butter, and tomatoes; often enriched with beef or goat meat; peanuts are a staple crop and appear in soups, stews, and sauces; a hearty, earthy dish served with kisra or asida.

🇸🇩Sudan

Dakwa

Peanuts roasted and pounded coarse with salt into a rough butter that thickens stews, dresses salads and is eaten on bread.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Dakwa

South Sudanese peanut paste; peanuts roasted and ground into a smooth, oily butter; used as a thickener for stews, a base for soups, and a dressing for salads; the versatile ingredient that defines South Sudanese cooking; sold at markets or made at home.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Dinka Porridge

Boor

Dinka name for thick sorghum or millet porridge; the staple carbohydrate of the Dinka people; eaten with stews, soups, or milk; served in a shared bowl; scooped by hand and used to soak up sauces; similar to asida but with regional variations.

🇸🇩Sudan

Doum Fruit

Doum

The fibrous, gingerbread-flavoured fruit of the doum palm, gnawed for its dry outer layer or ground and soaked into a drink.

🇸🇩Sudan

Eggplant with Yogurt

Salata aswad

Aubergine charred whole over flame, peeled and mashed with peanut butter, garlic, chilli and lemon.

🇸🇩Sudan

Elmaraara

Raw sheep's liver, lung and stomach chopped fine and dressed with peanut butter, lemon, chilli and salt.

🇸🇩Sudan

Elmussalammiya

Liver cooked with flour, dates and spices into a dense, faintly sweet stew unique to central Sudan.

🇪🇹Ethiopia

Ful

ፉል

A warming breakfast of slow-cooked fava beans mashed and seasoned with garlic, onions, jalapeños, tomatoes and niter kibbeh. Topped with ayib and chopped tomato, served with bread for scooping. Borrowed from Egypt and made distinctly Ethiopian.

🇸🇩Sudan

Ful Medames

فول مدمس

Dried fava beans simmered soft and crushed at the table with lemon, garlic, cumin and olive oil, eaten with raw onion and bread.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Ful Sudani

Light and fluffy peanut macaroon made with peanuts, eggs, and sugar; peanuts are a widely grown crop in South Sudan; a quick and convenient treat; sweet, nutty, and crumbly; found at markets and made at home.

🇸🇩Sudan

Gum Arabic

Samgh arabi

Hardened sap tapped from acacia trees in the Kordofan belt, chewed in lumps, dissolved in drinks and exported worldwide as a food additive.

🇸🇩Sudan

Gurasa

Gorrassa

A thick, soft wheat pancake cooked on a griddle and eaten with meat stew poured over it until it soaks through.

🇸🇩Sudan

Helo-Mur

Sorghum fermented with spices, hibiscus and fenugreek, dried into brittle sheets, then soaked in water to make the drink that breaks the Ramadan fast.

🇪🇷Eritrea

Injera

እንጀራ

Ethiopia's iconic sourdough flatbread, made from a fermented batter of teff flour and water, cooked into a large spongy round covered in tiny 'eyes'. It serves as both plate and utensil for nearly every Ethiopian meal.

🇸🇩Sudan

Jabana

Coffee roasted over coals in front of you, pounded with ginger or cardamom and boiled in a long-necked clay pot, then strained through grass into small cups.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Jebena Coffee

Jebena

Coffee prepared in a clay jebena and poured in small cups for South Sudanese gatherings.

🇸🇩Sudan

Jibna Bayda

A soft white cow's cheese preserved in brine, cut in slabs and eaten with bread and ful at breakfast.

🇸🇸Juba, South Sudan

Juba Beer

The national beer of South Sudan; brewed by South Sudan Beverages Limited; a crisp lager; found in bars and restaurants across the country; the bottled alternative to home-brewed millet beer; drunk at celebrations and social gatherings; a symbol of post-independence industry.

🇸🇩Sudan

Kajaik

Nile fish dried and pounded, then cooked with okra and onion into a pungent stew from the south and the White Nile.

🇸🇩Sudan

Karkade (Hibiscus Tea)

كركديه

Egypt's beloved hibiscus tea, served hot or cold with sugar, a national and hospitality icon

🇸🇩Sudan

Kawal

Leaves of the senna plant pounded and buried in a clay pot to ferment for weeks, then dried and crumbled into stews as a meat substitute.

🇸🇩Sudan

Kawari

Cattle or sheep trotters simmered for hours with onion and spice until the broth turns gelatinous and the tendons go soft.

🇸🇸South Sudan

Kisra

Sorghum batter fermented for days and spread paper-thin on a hot iron plate, peeled off in sheets and stacked to be torn and dipped.

🇦🇪United Arab Emirates

Luqaimat

لقيمات

Luqaimat are sweet fried dough dumplings with a crisp exterior and airy center, drizzled with date syrup and sesame seeds for Ramadan iftar.