West African cuisine encompasses a diverse range of foods, split between its 16 countries.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT), agriculture contributes almost 20% to Sub-Saharan Africa's economy, making it the region's most significant economic sector.
In West Africa, many families grow and raise their own food, and within each there is a division of labor.
West African cuisine has roots in ancient history, where yams, native West African rice, and millet, among others, were common staples.
When we talk about "staples" in the context of food, we're referring to those essential ingredients that form the backbone of everyday meals. They’re the foods people rely on for sustenance, eaten regularly and in large amounts.
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In Africa, staple foods vary significantly from region to region, thanks to the continent's vast diversity in climate, culture, and history.
Some of these were traded to Europeans who sort these items. During the early modern period, European explorers and slave traders influenced regional cuisines in West Africa, but only to a limited extent.
However, it was European merchant and slave ships which brought chili peppers, maize and tomatoes from the New World, which have become ubiquitous components of West African cuisines, along with peanuts, cassava, and plantains.
Around the time of the colonial period, particularly during the Scramble for Africa, European settlers defined colonial borders without regard to pre-existing borders, territories or cultural differences.
This bisected ethnicities and created colonies with varying culinary styles.
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For an overall view of West Africa, according to Fran Osseo-Asare, the common ingredients for the West African region are the leaves from a baobab tree, cereal grains: sorghum, millet, and fonio, cola nuts, egusi seeds, guinea fowl, melegueta pepper, oil palm, okra, and rice.
Other ingredients used are okra (thickener) as a basis for soups and stews, black-eyed peas, and sesame according to Jessica B.
Chilli peppers, however, are loved in West Africa, in fresh, dried and powdered form, particularly in the more hot and humid lands of the region.
Introduced to Africa sometime after Christopher Columbus sailed to America by European sailors, it is said that the sweating induced by the spicy heat of chilli helps to cool the skin.
More than in other regions of Africa, West Africans utilize Scotch bonnet chilli peppers with a liberal hand in many of their sauces and stews.
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The bite and fire of these extremely hot peppers (Scoville rating 200,000-300,000) add a unique flavor as well as heat.
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The seeds of Guinea pepper (Aframomum melegueta; also called grains of paradise or melegueta pepper), a plant indigenous to West Africa, are also widely used.
This native spice tastes and looks somewhat like a peppercorn, but has cardamom and coriander seed flavor notes.
Sumbala or soumbala is a flavouring used widely across West Africa, used in a manner not unlike a bouillon cube.
It is usually prepared by women over the course of several days, traditionally from néré (Parkia biglobosa) seeds, also known as locust bean, a plant native to West Africa.
The fabrication process involves boiling, cleaning and then packing away to ferment, with the fermentation process giving it a pungent smell and at the same time a rich, deep umami or savory flavour.
Salt can be added to the finished product to facilitate storage life.
African potash (potassium carbonate) is a native salt used for flavoring and to expedite the cooking time for some foods.
Starchy tubers and root vegetables are used as staple food, to be served with their meat and vegetable dishes, often as a foil to the hotness of the peppers.
Vegetables are a part of any West African meal.
Baobab leaves, pumpkin leaves, rosella leaves, sweet potato leaves, and cassava leaves (which contain cyanide in their raw state, and are always blanched with boiling water before use to remove the toxins) are some of the greens that are commonplace in a West African kitchen.
West Africans diet features several meat types, red meat, white meat and seafood.
Seafood is especially popular along the coast and many dishes combine both fish and meat.
Seafood is so prevalent in this region that this industry accounts for a quarter of the workforce.
Dried and smoked fish flavor a number of sauces, stews, and other dishes, including condiments, in much the same way that anchovies and bacon flavor food in a number of other cuisines.
Chicken is eaten nearly everywhere and chicken eggs are a common food and source of protein.
Guinea fowl eggs also popular.
Fufu is usually made from cassava, yams, and sometimes combined with cocoyam, plantains, cornmeal, or oatmeal.
In Ghana, fufu is mostly made from boiled cassava and unripe plantain beaten together, as well as from cocoyam.
Fufu can also be made from semolina, rice, or even instant potato flakes.
Often, the dish is still made by traditional methods: pounding and the base substance in a mortar with a wooden spoon.
In Western and Central Africa, the more common method is to serve a mound of fufu along with a soup (ọbẹ).
After washing hands, the diner pinches off a small ball of fufu and makes an indentation with the thumb.
In Nigeria and Ghana, the ball is often not chewed but swallowed whole; in fact, chewing fufu is considered a faux pas.
Some soups that may be served with fufu include light (tomato) soup, palm nut soup, groundnut soup, peppersoup, and other types of soups with vegetables such as okra and nkontomire (cocoyam leaves).
Groundnut stew (maafe; var. mafé, maffé, maff, sauce d'arachide, tigadèguèna or tigadene) is a peanut-based stew common to much of West Africa, and very popular in Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire.
Variants of maafe appear in the cuisine of nations throughout West Africa and Central Africa.
Recipes for the stew vary widely, but groundnut stew at its core is cooked with a sauce based on groundnuts (peanuts), the West African trinity of tomatoes, onion and chillies, and protein components such as mutton, beef or chicken.
In the coastal regions of Senegal, maafe is frequently made with fish.
Jollof rice, also called benachin, is a popular dish all over West Africa.
There are many variations of jollof rice, which in most cuisines depends on a base similar to obe ata.
The most common basic ingredients are rice, tomatoes and tomato paste, onion, salt, and red pepper.
The Senegalese version of jollof rice is a bit different and is called ceebu jen, the national dish of Senegal.
A variation, thiebou yapp, or "rice meat" is made with beef, mutton or other red meat.
Malt drinks such as Supermalt and fresh coconut water are popular beverages in West Africa.
As for alcoholic drinks, palm wine is a common beverage made from the fermented sap of various types of palm trees and is usually sold in sweet (less-fermented, retaining more of the sap's sugar) or sour (fermented longer, making it stronger and less sweet) varieties.
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