Cameroonian Ndole

The National Dishes Series

The sixth episode of the National Dishes Series — where a country gets picked at random and we cook their national dish while digging into a bit of history. This time: Cameroon.

Cameroon. The only country in the world named after a crustacean — in the 1400s, Portuguese sailors went up the coast, saw all the prawns, and called the place Rio dos Camarões: the River of Prawns.

They call it Africa in miniature: beach, desert, rainforest, savanna, and an active volcano all in one country. They gave the world Roger Milla, Samuel Eto’o, the first African team to reach a World Cup quarter-final, and Manu Dibango’s Soul Makossa — which Michael Jackson borrowed, heavily enough that there was a court case, for Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. In 1986, a lake in the north released a cloud of CO₂ that killed 1,700 people overnight — one of only two recorded events of its kind in human history.

Cameroon has known some bitter moments. Their national dish has a flavour to match.

Ndole

Ndole is a slow-built stew centred on bitter leaves — the same plant the dish is named after — cooked down with a ground peanut and broth sauce, chunks of stewing beef, and finished with king prawns fried in red palm oil. It is served alongside plantain two ways: boiled and fried (dodo).

The bitter leaves are not subtle. They are the point. If you can find them fresh or dried at an African or Caribbean grocer, use them. Spinach is added alongside but it is the bitter leaves that define the dish.

Verdict

The bitter leaves were appropriately named — probably the most bitter thing on record. Beyond the prawns and the beef it was barely edible. The peanut sauce is rich and well-built, and the dodo is excellent. But the dominant flavour is bitterness, which may be down to the particular batch of leaves — or may just be the dish being true to itself.