366 dishes from all 61 countries and territories in the Atlas, six from each: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, something sold on the street, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, a speciality of one coast or valley, and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions.
Search by ingredient as well as by name: groundnut, cassava, coconut, palm oil and sorghum will each return dishes from a dozen countries, which is the more useful way of seeing how African food actually connects.
61
Staple
The daily starch a meal is built on.
61
National dish
What the country names when asked about its food.
61
Street food
Sold from stalls, carts and roadside grills.
61
Festival & feast
Cooked for weddings, Eid, Christmas and guests.
61
Regional speciality
Tied to one coast, valley or community.
61
Drink & sweet
Teas, beers, palm wines and what ends the meal.
366 dishes
also Seksu, Kesksu
Steamed semolina under a vegetable and lamb broth, eaten on Fridays and at every family occasion. UNESCO listed it in 2020 as shared heritage of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania, after the four countries filed jointly rather than fight over it.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
also Chakhchoukha Biskria
Torn flatbread soaked in a tomato and lamb stew, from the Aurès and Biskra. The bread is made specifically to be shredded, and the dish is the centrepiece of large family gatherings across the east.
Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes
also Mahjouba
Thin semolina crêpes folded around a slow-cooked tomato, onion and pepper filling, griddled and sold from carts and hole-in-the-wall counters all over Algiers, especially through Ramadan.
Serves Makes 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Hand-cut steamed noodles in a pale cinnamon and turnip broth with chicken, made in Algiers and Tlemcen for the Prophet's birthday and for Eid. The whiteness of the sauce is the point: no tomato is allowed near it.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
Lamb soup thickened with freekeh, green wheat harvested young and roasted. It breaks the fast in Algerian households every night of Ramadan, and the smell of it carries down whole streets at sunset.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
also Atay, Thé à la menthe
Green tea with spearmint and a great deal of sugar, poured from height to raise a head of foam. Refusing the second glass is possible; refusing the first is not.
Serves 4 glasses · 15 minutes
Small potatoes boiled in heavily salted water until the skins wrinkle and crust with salt, served with mojo sauces. Made originally with seawater, and still the first thing put on any Canarian table.
Serves 4 · 40 minutes
Salt fish poached with potatoes and sweet potato, served with gofio kneaded into a ball. Eaten at Easter and on saints' days, and the closest thing the islands have to a national dish.
Serves 6 · 1 hour, plus 24 hours soaking
Small marinated pork skewers grilled over charcoal, sold at every romería and fiesta in the islands. The name means Moorish skewers, from a Spanish dish that reached the Canaries and stayed.
Serves Makes 12 skewers · 30 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating
Shredded beef and chicken fried with chickpeas and potato, built from the meat left over after making broth. The name means old clothes, for the rags the meat falls into.
Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes
Toasted grain flour scalded with hot fish broth into a smooth paste, eaten with a raw onion to scoop it. Gofio is the direct inheritance of the aboriginal Canarians and is still eaten daily.
Serves 4 · 20 minutes
A layered coffee of condensed milk, liqueur, espresso and foamed milk, finished with lemon peel and cinnamon. Ordered by the thousand in Tenerife and served in a glass so the layers show.
Serves 1 · 5 minutes
Wholemeal pocket bread baked at ferocious heat so it balloons. The word eish means life in Egyptian Arabic rather than bread, and its price has brought down governments.
Serves Makes 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes
also Kushari
Rice, lentils and macaroni under spiced tomato sauce, garlic vinegar and fried onions. Assembled in the nineteenth century from Indian, Italian and Egyptian parts, and now the national dish, sold by the ton from dedicated shops.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
also Egyptian falafel
Falafel made with dried fava beans rather than chickpeas, bright green inside from a mass of herbs. Egypt's version predates the chickpea one, and Egyptians will tell you so without being asked.
Serves Makes 20 · 40 minutes, plus 24 hours soaking
Toasted bread and rice under lamb, with a garlic and vinegar tomato sauce poured over. Made for Eid al-Adha with the sacrificed animal, and for the celebration of a first child.
Serves 8 · 3 hours
also Mulukhiyah
Finely chopped jute mallow leaves cooked in broth to a deliberately viscous green soup, finished with a hiss of fried garlic and coriander. Eaten in the Delta and Cairo alike, and divisive nowhere in Egypt.
Serves 6 · 45 minutes
also Hibiscus tea
Dried hibiscus calyces steeped to a deep crimson, drunk iced in summer and hot in winter. Served at weddings across Egypt and Sudan, and once reserved for the pharaohs in the version Egyptians like to tell.
Serves 6 · 20 minutes, plus chilling
A firm dome of barley dough boiled in the broth it is served with, eaten by hand from a communal dish. The dough is beaten with a stick called a magraf until it is stiff enough to hold its shape.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
Lamb soup with orzo, mint and a great deal of tomato, eaten daily through Ramadan and at almost every Libyan table besides. The dried mint stirred in at the end is not optional.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
Potato slices sandwiched around spiced minced meat, battered and deep fried. Sold from Ramadan stalls in Tripoli and Benghazi and made at home in quantities that never seem to be enough.
Serves Makes 12 · 45 minutes
Couscous served with osban, a sausage of offal, rice, herbs and spices packed into tripe. Made for Eid from the sacrificed animal, and the dish Libyans abroad miss most.
Serves 8 · 3 hours
Hand-cut noodles steamed and served with a chickpea and onion sauce, from Tripolitania. A quiet, unspiced dish in a cuisine that is otherwise emphatic, and usually eaten in winter.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
A soft wheat pudding served in a pool of date syrup and olive oil, eaten for the Prophet's birthday and to celebrate a birth. Sweet, plain and eaten from the shared dish with the fingers.
Serves 6 · 30 minutes