Cabo Verde: Food and the National Dish

A Creole cuisine born on Atlantic islands

Cabo Verde's ten volcanic islands were uninhabited until Portuguese settlers arrived in the 15th century, bringing enslaved Africans with them soon after; the Creole, or Crioulo, culture that developed here — its own language as well as its own food — blends Portuguese ingredients and techniques with West African cooking habits in a way found nowhere else quite the same. Corn and beans are the staples and fish is central, with pork and other meats alongside, on islands long troubled by drought.

The national dish: cachupa

Cachupa, referred to as the country's national dish, is a slow-cooked stew of corn (hominy), beans, and fish or meat such as sausage, pork, beef, goat or chicken, often with blood sausage and vegetables, simmered until everything softens together; each island has its own version. Cachupa rica has more ingredients, including more meat, while cachupa pobre is the simpler, humbler version.

Just as important as the fresh dish is what happens to what's left over: cachupa refogada, or cachupa frita, is yesterday's cachupa fried up the next morning, often served for breakfast with a fried egg and fried sausage or mackerel, and a favourite in its own right.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across Cabo Verde:

• Pastel com diabo dentro — a fried pastry filled with spicy tuna, whose

name translates to "pastry with the devil inside", the devil being the chilli heat of the filling.

• Caldo de peixe — a fish stew, usually of mackerel, with potato, pumpkin

and other vegetables, served with rice.

• Xerém — a dish of ground corn, often served with soup.
• Feijoada caboverdiana — Cabo Verde's own hearty bean stew, related to

the feijoadas of Portugal and Brazil.

• Fried moray eel — fried in oil and often served as a bafa, a quick snack

eaten with drinks.

Grogue and other drinks

Grogue, a strong spirit distilled from sugarcane grown mainly on Santo Antão and Santiago, is Cabo Verde's own spirit, distinct from but comparable to Brazilian cachaça. Ponche sweetens grogue with condensed milk or sugarcane molasses for something milder. Fogo island, built on an active volcano that last erupted in 2014, produces coffee and wine from its volcanic soil, including wines from the Chã das Caldeiras crater. Strela is the most popular beer.

Eating as a traveller

Vegetarians will find the going harder here, since cachupa in its most common forms includes meat or fish and much of the everyday diet is built around them. Many visitors drink bottled water. Fresh fish is a reliable and often excellent choice virtually anywhere on the islands.

What to take from the table

Cachupa, eaten fresh and then again fried the next morning, is the dish that best captures Cabo Verdean food — patient, resourceful, and built to stretch a good pot of stew across more than one meal.