Pan-African Food, Made for the Table

Fava beans have fed Egypt since the time of the pharaohs, and ful is still the country's everyday breakfast, ladled from street carts all over Cairo. Salatet ful is its fresh, cool cousin: the same beans, dressed as a salad instead of stewed.

Cabbage is one of the humblest vegetables in the North African kitchen. We char it until the edges turn sweet and smoky, then dress it with the bold, salty flavors of the Maghreb: preserved lemon, tangy labneh and feta.

Sambusa are a fixture of Somali and East African tables, above all at iftar, when families break the Ramadan fast together. A cousin of the samosa, it traveled the Indian Ocean trade routes. The Somali version is seasoned with xawaash, the warm spice blend at the heart of Somali cooking.

Akara, crisp black-eyed pea fritters, are a street-food staple across West Africa, from Lagos breakfast stands to the markets of Dakar. In Senegal they are called accara and come with kani, a fiery pepper sauce. The recipe crossed the Atlantic with enslaved West Africans and lives on in Bahia, Brazil, as acarajé.

Africa's coastlines, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, each have their own way with the day's catch. Our kitchen picks the freshest fish every day and cooks it with flavors from across the continent, so no two days taste quite the same.

Potjiekos, Afrikaans for “small pot food,” is South Africa's fireside tradition: a three-legged cast-iron pot left to simmer over coals while friends gather around it. Oxtail, loved from the Caribbean to the American South, is made for that kind of patience.

Mechoui is Morocco's celebration lamb, traditionally a whole lamb roasted for hours over fire or in a clay pit for weddings, Eid and other feasts. The meat is so tender that it is pulled apart by hand at the table.

Zanzibar, the spice island off the coast of Tanzania, sits where African, Arab and Indian cooking meet. Its coconut curries, perfumed with the cloves and warm spices the island is famous for, are the taste of the Swahili Coast.

Piri-piri, the small, fiery African bird's eye chile, became Mozambique's signature after Portuguese traders carried chiles there from the Americas. The sauce built around it now travels the world. Its home is the Mozambican coast, famous for its prawns.

Koshari is Egypt's national dish and its favorite street food, a fixture of Cairo since the 19th century. It pairs lentils and rice like India's khichdi, which may have given koshari its name, then adds pasta, chickpeas and a tangy tomato sauce.

Jollof takes its name from the Wolof, or Jolof, Empire of the Senegambia region, and it is the celebration dish of West Africa. Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal each claim the best version, a friendly rivalry known as the jollof wars.

Pilau reached the East African coast through centuries of Indian Ocean trade, and Swahili cooks made it their own with warm whole spices. It is the rice of weddings and Eid from Mombasa to Zanzibar, and it is traditionally served with kachumbari.

In Swahili, sukuma wiki means “push the week” or “stretch the week.” Collard greens are affordable and plentiful, so they carry families from one payday to the next. It is everyday food across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, usually eaten with ugali.

Fried ripe plantains go by many names across Africa and its diaspora: dodo in Nigeria, kelewele when spiced in Ghana, alloco in Côte d'Ivoire and maduros in the Caribbean. Wherever they are made, they disappear fast.

Chapati arrived in East Africa with Indian workers and traders in the late 1800s and became a staple across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The East African version is rolled in layers with oil, which makes it softer and flakier than its Indian ancestor.