a wide variety of vegetables and seasonings (hot), but often meat and fish and bones, when available.
Naarjes: South African tangerines, deep in color and rich in flavor.
Nhopi: a Fufu or porridge made from pumpkin. Nsiko: crabs.
Ofe Nsala: a fiery pepper sauce made with a base of meat or fish. This is one of the most popular things served to women with new babies and may comprise the main part of the diet, diluted as a soup or gruel, or eaten with Fufu.
Olilie: one version of the seasoning paste made from dried, fermented, and cooked seeds, used for flavoring.
Oka Esiri Esi: a corn and milk soup.
Olele: a baked or steamed Nigerian pudding made from ground peas, onion, and salt.
Oporo Ukwu: lobster.
Pan Bread: Southern United States name for a disc-shaped bread prepared from cassava flour.
Plantain: tropical plant bearing a fruit similar to the banana, usually eaten cooked.
Pombe: beer made from plantains or bananas.
Rupiza: thin porridge or gruel made from powdered dried beans.
Sabal Palmetto: the young sprouting leaves of cocoyams and sweet potatoes, cut and cooked as greens for relishes.
Sorghum: cereal grass grown for grain or fodder.
Suya: cut up meats marinated in peanut oil then skewered and cooked.
Swahili Yeast: yeast made from the fermentation of ripe plantains, sugar, water, and wheat flour. Used as leavening agent for breads, buns, and fried cookies.
Teff: fine millet flour. Tembo: palm wine.
Togwa: beverage made from fermented germinated sorghum.
Tseme or Nhembatemba: special pot used for storing Dovi (groundnut butter).
Tuwo: spicy okra sauce.
Tuwonsaffe: in northern Ghana, the daily Fufu is allowed to ferment in this “sourpot” and the Fufu needed for meals is scooped from the Tuwonsaffe.
Ugali: Tanzanian staple cornmeal porridge of Fufu.
Ulezi: a slow cooked porridge of milk and millet, flavored with butter and lemon juice. A food for convalescents.
Yam: the nutritious white yam is a powerfully symbolic staple food frequently staving off malnutrition and starvation, particularly in West Africa. Often of immense size, one African yam can easily feed a family. Feast days are common and yams figure largely in any festive occasion. Because the egg symbolizes fertility and therefore eternity, eggs often accompany yams in these special dishes.