Cameroon
'Africa in miniature' on a plate: bitterleaf-and-peanut ndolé, grilled suya, and a beer culture to match.
They call Cameroon 'Africa in miniature', and the plate proves it. The dish most claim as national is ndolé — slightly bitter leafy greens simmered with ground peanuts and fish, prawns or beef into something rich and green and moreish, eaten around Douala with fried plantains. Head into the western Grassfields and it becomes achu, pounded cocoyam dipped in a spiced yellow soup.
The country's Anglophone-Francophone and forest-Sahel splits are all legible in the food: eru forest greens with water fufu in the west, ndolé and poulet DG on the coast, spicy suya and kilichi dried beef up in the Muslim north. Palm oil, groundnuts and bitterleaf are the pantry trinity. Then there's the beer — Castel, '33', Mutzig — and roadside brochette grills, a whole Friday-night culture of their own.
- Ndolé (bitterleaf
- peanut and fish stew)
- Achu (pounded cocoyam with yellow soup)
- Poulet DG (chicken with fried plantains)
- Eru (forest-greens stew with fufu)
- Suya (spiced grilled beef skewers)
- Koki (steamed bean pudding)
- Palm wine
