Tagine
A clay pot with a cone for a lid: steam falls back as dew, and a courtyard meal cooks without wasting a drop.
West African cuisine · Cookware
West African hearths
The pots, disks, and ovens that make West African food sound like itself — not a substitute skillet with the same recipe printed on top.
A cuisine is a shape of fire as much as a spice drawer. These are the vessels this kitchen still cooks in — the hearths of the country, with an Amazon search if you want to bring one home.
Back to West African cooking · Open the West African pantry · All cookware
Couscoussier
Two pots stacked: a stew below, a rain of steamed semolina above — Friday lunch in a single column of steam.
Cast-iron skillet
A black iron pan that outlives its cook: cornbread, a chop, and the weekday that starts with a loud hiss.
Dutch oven
A heavy pot with a tight lid: the one the 30 books reach for when they do not name a country-specific hearth.
Mortar and pestle
A bowl and a weight: salsa, pesto, and spice pastes that still taste of the stone they were born in.
Coal pot
A clay or iron brazier: the weekday stove of a yard, with one pot sitting on a ring of coals.
Asanka
A ridged earthenware bowl: pepper sauce and fufu accompaniments ground the Ghanaian way.
Keep cooking
The West African pantry, pots, and table
The spices, mixes, and hearths that belong to West African cooking — then the people around them, and the kitchens still joining the table.
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