Cameroon: Food and the National Dish

Africa's most diverse small kitchen

Cameroon calls itself "Africa in miniature", and the description holds up at the table as much as anywhere: some 250 ethnic groups, a split between former French and British colonial territories that still shapes everyday language and habits, and climate zones running from tropical coast to Sahelian north all feed into a genuinely varied national cuisine. Cassava, plantain, cocoyam, corn and groundnuts carry most meals, cooked into a wide range of thick, well-seasoned soups and stews eaten with a starchy paste rather than plated separately.

The national dish: ndolé

Ndolé is a stew of ndolé (bitter leaf) greens — sometimes compared to spinach, and boiled repeatedly to tame their bitterness — cooked down with ground peanuts, crayfish, garlic and onion, and fish, beef or shrimp. Originating in the coastal city of Douala, it is widely regarded as Cameroon's national dish, served with plantain or with miondo or bobolo — fermented cassava steamed in leaves.

Poulet DG and celebration food

Poulet DG (chicken with plantain, vegetables and spices, fried and simmered together) has an unusually specific origin story: the name stands for "Directeur Général," and the dish is popularly said to have earned it as food prestigious enough to serve a company director. It is now a popular dish for special occasions and celebrations in Cameroon.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across Cameroon's regions:

• Achu — pounded cocoyam (taro) served with a vivid yellow soup made from

palm oil and spices, a speciality of the Grassfields region in the Northwest.

• Eru — a soup of finely shredded eru (Gnetum) leaves cooked with waterleaf

or spinach, palm oil, crayfish and smoked fish or beef, a dish of the Manyu people of the Southwest region usually eaten with water fufu.

• Koki — a steamed cake of ground black-eyed peas and red palm oil wrapped

and cooked in banana or cocoyam leaves.

• Miondo — fermented cassava paste wrapped in leaves as thin sticks and

steamed, the Duala version of bobolo and a classic partner for ndolé.

• Suya — spiced, skewered grilled meat of Hausa origin, a tradition shared

with neighbouring Nigeria.

Palm wine and drinks

Palm wine, tapped fresh from palm trees and drunk while still lightly fermented and cloudy, carries real social and ceremonial weight in Cameroon, as across much of Central and West Africa, and is served at weddings, funerals and other gatherings. Cameroon is also one of the world's largest cocoa producers and grows coffee in its western highlands, and locally brewed lagers are widely drunk alongside grilled meat and street food.

Eating as a traveller

Vegetarians will find the going difficult, since ndolé, eru and most soups are traditionally built around fish, meat or their stock; plain plantain, rice and bean-based koki are the more reliable options. Tap water is not safe to drink; stick to bottled or boiled water. Food differs noticeably between Cameroon's Francophone majority and its Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions, although most governments currently advise against all travel to those two regions because of a separatist conflict that began in 2016.

What to take from the table

Ndolé, made properly with its bitter leaf and rich groundnut base, is the dish to try first — and poulet DG, for anyone lucky enough to be invited to a celebration, shows how a once-aspirational dish became everyone's party food.