Traditional African Dishes

Rwandan grilled or fried pork served in chopped pieces with kachumbari and fried plantain. A beloved bar and grill dish whose playful name nods to a Mercedes-Benz, signalling something prized and indulgent.

Rwanda

Air-dried, spiced cured meat from Southern Africa, made from beef or game and seasoned with coriander, salt and vinegar. A beloved everyday snack, distinct from American jerky.

South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe

South Africa's Cape Malay national dish: spiced minced beef baked with raisins or apricots under a golden egg-and-milk custard topping, served with yellow rice. Sweet, savoury and gently curried.

South Africa

The iconic South African farmer's sausage: a thick, coarse coiled sausage of beef (and often pork) spiced with coriander, clove and nutmeg, grilled on the braai or served in a roll as a boerewors roll.

South Africa, Namibia

Botswana's porridge staple, traditionally cooked from sorghum (and also maize or millet) into a soft or stiff base eaten with seswaa and morogo, with a sweet-savoury melon version called bogobe jwa lerotse.

Botswana

Cassava boiled, mashed and fried into small golden balls, crisp outside and dense within. Sold sweet with sugar or savoury with cheese from bakery trays and street stalls across the islands.

Cape Verde

The South African barbecue and a national institution: meat grilled over wood or charcoal, with boerewors, sosaties and chops, served with pap and chakalaka. Far more a social ritual than a cooking method.

South Africa, Namibia

Skewers of grilled marinated goat, beef, chicken, or fish, served with grilled plantain and a cold beer. Rwanda's favourite bar food and the heart of its evening social life.

Rwanda

A hollowed-out half or quarter loaf of white bread filled with spicy curry, born in the Indian community of Durban. A messy, hand-eaten street food eaten with no cutlery at all.

South Africa

Cape Verde's national dish: a slow-simmered stew of hominy corn and beans with cassava, sweet potato and either fish or meat, then fried the next morning with an egg on top.

Cape Verde

A hearty fish soup of grouper, tuna or wahoo simmered with cassava, sweet potato, green banana and cabbage, served with a wedge of cuscuz or a bowl of rice.

Cape Verde

A spicy South African vegetable relish of onions, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beans, and curry spice. A township classic served cold or hot alongside pap, braai meat, and bread.

South Africa

Soft, flaky, pan-fried unleavened flatbread of Indian origin, now an East African staple and treat. It is the wrap inside Uganda's rolex and a Sunday favorite across the region.

Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda

A Zambian terrine made from ground wild-orchid tubers, groundnuts, and chilli, set into a firm sliceable loaf. An increasingly popular delicacy, now also a conservation concern.

Zambia

Tanzania's beloved chip omelette: french fries cooked into a fried egg and served with kachumbari and chilli sauce. Ubiquitous street and bar food across the country.

Tanzania

A steamed cake of fine corn flour cooked in a clay binde pot, sliced and eaten warm for breakfast with butter, honey or sugarcane molasses. Nothing like North African couscous.

Cape Verde

A Zambian okra relish known for its characteristic slippery, mucilaginous texture, eaten with nshima. Sometimes prepared with bicarbonate of soda and also made with other slimy greens.

Zambia

A Botswana dish of samp (crushed maize) cooked with sugar beans or cowpeas, sometimes with sorghum. A filling, hearty staple side similar to South African umngqusho.

Botswana

A giant Cape Town submarine sandwich: a long bread roll stuffed with hot chips, masala steak, polony, or fried fish plus achar and sauces, cut into shareable portions. A Cape Flats invention.

South Africa

A homely Kikuyu staple of boiled maize and beans, often fried up with onion, tomato, and spices. Cheap, filling, everyday food eaten across central Kenya and beyond.

Kenya

Cape Verde's national spirit, distilled from fresh sugarcane juice in small valley stills, most of it on Santo Antao. Clear, fierce and agricultural, closer to rhum agricole than to rum.

Cape Verde

A rich Ugandan peanut sauce made from ground groundnuts, sometimes with smoked fish, mushrooms, or greens, poured over matoke, posho, or rice. One of the country's most beloved everyday sauces.

Uganda

Potatoes, a Rwandan staple grown in the cool volcanic highlands, boiled, fried, or stewed and served as a versatile side. They turn up everywhere from home kitchens to grills, where they sit alongside brochettes.

Rwanda

A Zambian relish of leafy greens simmered in a thick groundnut (peanut) sauce, eaten with nshima. A staple vegetarian dish found on tables across the country.

Zambia

A Rwandan one-pot dish of chicken or meat slow-cooked with plantains, vegetables and onions into a comforting, lightly spiced stew. The name refers to the cooking pot itself.

Rwanda

Seasonal winged termites collected after the first rains and fried in their own fat until crisp and salted. A crunchy, nutty, protein-rich Zambian delicacy eaten as a snack or relish with nshima.

Zambia

Mashed cassava leaves slow-cooked with spinach, eggplant, and often groundnut paste. A staple Rwandan vegetable dish also found in DRC and Burundi.

Rwanda

A fresh raw salad and relish of chopped tomato, onion, chilli, coriander, and lime. It is the standard sharp, cooling accompaniment to nyama choma and grilled meats across East Africa.

Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda

Windhoek's signature street food: thin strips of beef grilled fast over open fires at bustling markets, bought straight off the grill and dipped in kapana spice, chilli and a fresh tomato-onion salsa. A lively, buy-as-you-go social experience.

Namibia

Small dried freshwater sardine-like fish from Lake Kariba and Lake Tanganyika, fried crisp or stewed with tomato and onion. A cheap, popular protein relish eaten with nshima or sadza.

Zambia, Zimbabwe

A popular Ugandan one-pot breakfast of green banana (matoke) simmered with offal, beans, or groundnut sauce until soft. Filling, affordable comfort food cooked entirely in one pot.

Uganda

A sweet plaited and deep-fried dough that is plunged into cold sugar syrup, leaving it crunchy outside and syrupy inside. A traditional South African treat with both a Cape Dutch and a spiced Cape Malay variant.

South Africa

A Ugandan delicacy of chicken, beef, or smoked fish cooked in groundnut sauce or vegetables and steamed slowly inside a wrapped banana leaf parcel. A Buganda dish of honour first created for the Kabaka.

Uganda

A warm, spongy apricot-jam sponge pudding of Cape Dutch origin, baked until caramelised and then soaked in a hot creamy sauce. Served with custard or ice cream, it is a beloved South African dessert.

South Africa

Lightly sweet East African fried dough, usually triangular, sometimes spiced with cardamom and coconut. It is the classic companion to a cup of chai for breakfast or a tea break.

Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda

Steamed and mashed green cooking bananas, the national staple of Uganda. Soft and savoury, served with groundnut sauce, beans, or meat stew.

Uganda, Rwanda

Zimbabwean cow or pig trotters slow-simmered for hours until the gelatinous meat falls off the bone, served in a rich gravy with sadza. A hearty, prized dish often enjoyed at gatherings and bars.

Zimbabwe

A Cape Dutch milk tart with a pastry shell holding a creamy milk-and-egg custard dusted with cinnamon. Lighter and milkier than a typical custard tart, it is a much-loved South African dessert.

South Africa

Marinated grilled meat skewers of beef or goat, the East African coastal cousin of the kebab, sold at roadside charcoal grills in the evening.

Tanzania, Kenya

Sweet ripe plantains sliced and fried until golden and caramelised. A popular side and snack in Rwanda and the wider Great Lakes region, soft inside with crisp, sugary edges.

Rwanda

The caterpillar of the emperor moth, harvested from mopane trees, dried and then fried or stewed in a tomato and onion sauce. A high-protein traditional delicacy across Southern Africa.

Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa

Wild and cultivated leafy greens boiled and cooked with onion, tomato, or groundnuts. A nutritious everyday relish eaten with pap or bogobe across South Africa and Botswana.

South Africa, Botswana

A central Kenyan mash of potatoes, maize, beans, and green leafy vegetables, often a vivid green from pumpkin leaves. A hearty Kikuyu side served with nyama choma or stew.

Kenya

Zimbabwean leafy greens cooked with tomato, onion, and a generous spoon of peanut butter into a creamy relish. A vegetarian staple eaten with sadza.

Zimbabwe

A Kenyan grilled sausage made from goat or beef intestine stuffed with minced meat, blood, and spices. A smoky roadside snack sliced into bite-size pieces and eaten with kachumbari.

Kenya

Namibia's celebrated wild meats: kudu, gemsbok (oryx), springbok, zebra and ostrich, served as steaks, potjie, biltong or German-influenced dishes. Lean, sustainable and central to Namibian dining.

Namibia

A Tanzanian home-style stew of green plantains slow-cooked with beef in a tomato and coconut sauce, beloved across the Kilimanjaro region and a comforting staple of Chagga kitchens.

Tanzania

Seasonal long-horned grasshoppers (bush-crickets) fried with onion and spices until crunchy and savoury. A prized Ugandan delicacy harvested during the rainy seasons.

Uganda

Zambia's beloved thick maize-meal staple, rolled into balls by hand and dipped into relish (ndiwo), at the center of nearly every Zambian meal and a marker of national identity.

Zambia

Slow-grilled meat, usually goat or beef, eaten by hand with ugali and kachumbari. The unofficial national dish of Kenya and a weekend ritual across East Africa.

Kenya, Tanzania

A stiff porridge from northern Namibia made from mahangu (pearl millet), the everyday staple of the Ovambo people, eaten by hand with meat, dried fish, or wild spinach.

Namibia

South Africa's everyday maize-meal porridge, cooked from soft and soupy to stiff and crumbly, eaten by hand at a braai with sheba sauce, chakalaka, and grilled meat.

South Africa

A crisp fried pastry of sweet potato and corn flour dough stuffed with spicy tuna, onion and tomato. The name means pastry with the devil inside, for the chilli.

Cape Verde

Spiced one-pot rice cooked with meat and warm spices like cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves. A Swahili coast classic served at weddings, Eid, and celebrations.

Kenya, Tanzania

A slow-cooked stew made outdoors in a three-legged cast-iron pot over coals, layered with meat and vegetables and left unstirred. An Afrikaner social cooking tradition alongside the braai.

South Africa, Namibia

Crescent-shaped fried turnovers filled with shrimp in a thick bechamel, breadcrumbed and eaten hot as a snack. A Portuguese inheritance that Cape Verde adopted completely and now makes better than the original.

Cape Verde

Uganda's iconic street snack: a chapati rolled around a fried egg omelette with tomato, onion, and cabbage. The name is a playful take on rolled eggs.

Uganda

Zimbabwe's thick maize-meal staple, eaten by hand with a relish of greens, meat, or kapenta. It is the heart of nearly every meal in the country.

Zimbabwe

Whole grilled fish basted in a rich, tangy coconut curry sauce, a hallmark of the Swahili coast from Mombasa to Zanzibar and Lamu.

Kenya, Tanzania

A traditional Botswana dish of slow-cooked offal: the tripe, intestines and other innards of goat, sheep or cattle, simmered for hours until tender. Hearty, economical and culturally valued at gatherings.

Botswana

Botswana's national dish: beef or goat slow-boiled with only salt, then pounded and shredded until soft and almost spreadable. The centrepiece of weddings and celebrations.

Botswana

Sauteed collard greens or kale cooked down with onion and tomato, the everyday vegetable side of Kenyan and Tanzanian meals. The name means push or stretch the week in Swahili.

Kenya, Tanzania

The stiff maize-flour porridge that is the staple carbohydrate across East Africa, cooked to a firm dough and eaten by hand as an edible scoop for stews and greens.

Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda

A tangy Zanzibari street soup with a turmeric and mango base, loaded to order with bhajias, crisps, boiled potato, cassava, and chutneys. Bright, sour, and endlessly customizable.

Tanzania

Deep-fried dough balls eaten sweet with syrup or jam, or savoury filled with curried mince or polony. A cheap, beloved snack and street food across Southern Africa.

South Africa, Botswana, Namibia

Free-range indigenous chicken slow-cooked into a rich, savoury stew. Prized far above commercial broiler for its firmer texture and deeper flavour, and reserved for guests and special occasions.

Zambia, Zimbabwe

Tanzanian and Zanzibari coconut rice, fluffy white rice cooked in coconut milk, the classic staple side served with coastal curries and fish.

Tanzania

A Zanzibar night-market specialty: a thin dough wrapper stuffed with minced meat, egg, vegetables, and mayo, folded into a parcel and fried crisp on a flat griddle. Sweet Nutella and banana versions are popular too.

Tanzania