West African cuisine
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, and both have become ubiquitous components of West African cuisines, along with peanuts, cassava, and plantains.
In Senegal, the main ingredients are among many others hot pepper, rice, millet, peanut, ginger, tamarind leaves, and baobab fruit, and cooking oil (Ross, 75).
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. Harris in High on the Hog.
[2] Both are based on tomatoes, chili peppers, onions and flavorings such as thyme, garlic, ginger, curry powder, along with stock or bouillon.
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.
The chilli is also supposed to help preserve food, as well as adding flavour to relatively bland tropical staples like root vegetables.
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.
Cassava, cocoyams, sweet potatoes, plantains, and yams are ubiquitous in the local diet, and they are usually boiled and then pounded with a pestle and mortar into a thick starchy paste called fufu.
Other starch staples eaten throughout West Africa besides root vegetables and tubers include fonio, rice, millet, sorghum, and maize.
It is often flaked and fried in oil, and sometimes cooked in sauce made with the base of hot peppers, onions and tomatoes, various spices (such as soumbala) and water to produce a combination of subtle flavors.
Suya, a popular grilled spicy meat kebab flavored with peanuts and other spices, is sold by street vendors as a snack or evening meal and is typically made with beef or chicken.
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.
With the significant expansion of groundnut cultivation during the colonial period, maafe has become a popular dish across West Africa, and as far east as Cameroon.
Maafe is traditionally served with white rice (in Senegambia), couscous (as West Africa meets the Sahara) or fufu and sweet potatoes in the more tropical areas.
