country Essentials · 12 foods
Liberia Essentials
A considered first route through Liberia: the foods that carry its everyday habits, celebrations, ingredients, and memory.
Explore all Liberia foods →THE
ESSENTIALS
The complete shortlist
12 foods to know.
Each selection includes the reason it belongs here—so this is a guide, not just a pile of names.
Liberia
Cassava Swallow
Dumboy
Boiled cassava is pounded smooth, rolled into balls, and covered with pepper soup or palm butter.
Liberia
Torborgee
Bitter torborgee beans simmer with palm oil and dried meat in the Lorma tradition of Lofa County.
Liberia
Liberian Palm Butter Soup
Palm Butter Soup
Fresh palm fruit becomes a rust-red soup with smoked fish, crayfish, whole peppers, and rice.
Liberia
Liberian Peanut Soup
Peanut Soup
Peanuts, meat, okra, potatoes, and dried fish make the thick lunch soup eaten with rice.
Liberia
Liberian Potato Greens
Potato Greens
Sweet-potato leaves cook with fish, peppers, and palm oil into a deeply savoury Monrovia staple.
Liberia
Cassava Leaf Plassas
Cassava Leaf Soup
Ground cassava leaves, meat, dried fish, and red oil form the dark sauce served over rice.
Liberia
Liberian Chicken Gravy
Chicken Gravy
Special-occasion chicken ishtu is enriched with shrimp, green beans, peppers, ginger, and parsley.
Cameroon
Nigerian Jollof Rice
Jollof rice
Liberian jollof cooks rice, tomato, pepper, vegetables, and meat together until the pot catches.
Liberia
Rice Bread
Liberian Rice Bread
Moist rice-and-banana bread with ginger is a familiar Liberian starter beside tea or coffee.
Liberia
Liberian Pepper Soup
Pepper Soup
Liberian pepper soup is a clear, aromatic broth of fish or meat, ginger, chilli, and local spices served as a national comfort dish.
Liberia
Kanyah
Roasted peanuts, garri, sugar, and honey are pounded into a dense roadside sweet.
Sierra Leone
Ginger Beer
Ginga Bia
A fierce homemade ginger drink arrives cold, cloudy, sweet, and hot enough to sting.