Togolese Food Guide

Togolese food habits have been influenced by the country’s colonial legacy. The Germans left a legacy of beer and the French the baguette, which is preferred to any other kind of bread. Maize is the staple diet and is cooked in a variety of ways from eaten off the cob to ground into flour and mixed with water to make porridge called pâtes or akume.  Pâtes or porridge is a savoury dish served with 'sauces'  - thick stews usually made of vegetables, like okra and spinach. Sauces are also made with meats, smoked fish, including fish heads, cow skin and large bush rats, known locally as ‘grasscutters’ or agouti.

Another very well known Togolese dish is fufu. The preparation of fufu is a community ritual involving endless hours of pounding yams till it resembles baker’s dough, a hard, laborious task done exclusively by women. The noise the fufu pounders make is one of the most recognisable sounds in Togo. Fufu is eaten with a variety of meat and vegetable sauces, just the way pates are.

The locals don’t eat very often, but when they do, they head for the inexpensive roadside stalls that sell roasted and boiled maize and corn on the cob, peanuts, omelettes, brochettes and cooked prawns. The bigger towns have bars, cafes and restaurants patronised by foreign visitors, businessmen and government officials.