• Cameroon offers some of the best cuisine in the whole of west Africa. The country's great geographical differences influence the crops grown around the country. In the south the cuisine is dominated by starch staples like yam and cassava (or manioc, or batons de manioc, often appearing as feuille on menus) and plantain (a large green unsweet banana that requires cooking, that is normally boiled when unripe and sometimes mashed into an edible glob, or fried when yellow and black and ripe). In the north meals are far more likely to have maize and millet. Peanut (groundnut) sauces and palm oil sauces are commonly added to many dishes.

  Douala and Yaoundé both have a good choice of restaurants, serving a variety of cuisines including Cameroonian, French, Chinese, Italian, Lebanese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Indian and Japanese. The most expensive restaurants and hotels tend to serve French dishes, although quality can be quite poor despite the high prices.

  You may occasionally find restaurants and cafés serving something substantially more exotic than that, such as snake, giant land snail, pangolin, antelope, gorilla, chimpanzee, elephant, cat or dog. The grasscutter (or agouti, or cane rat), a rodent of the porcupine family, is sometimes found in stews. Less likely to be found on menus are Cameroonian dishes such as fried grasshoppers, ants and termites.

  Yet menus are likely to adjust somewhat since the Cameroonian authorities announced in May 2003 that any restaurant caught serving meat from endangered animals could face up to three years in prison and a fine of more than CFA8,000,000/£8,500/US$16,000.

  Less formal than restaurants, 'chicken' and 'fish' houses abound, especially in the main cities. They serve chicken, fish, plantains and chips. Most are good and more reasonably priced than full-service restaurants.

  The smallest, simplest restaurants are called chantiers('worksites') and serve inexpensive traditional Cameroonian dishes. There are also chop houses (basic eating houses) serving 'chop' (simple local-style dishes) and simple eateries often just consisting of a couple of tables and benches. At a street café you could typically expect to buy an omelette, bread or chips and a drink for under CFA1,000 (£1.07/US$1.89).

  Street food is very widely available, typically served on a stick, wrapped in paper or a plastic bag, and is cheap, clean, freshly cooked and tasty. Commonest is the brochette or soya, a CFA100 (10p/18c) stick of kebabbed meat or fish, usually accompanied by a sauce such as peanut or spice. Although the meat or fish may not have been up to strict hygienic standards when raw, it is normally very thoroughly barbecued and often a far better bet than the frequently reheated pots of food in many restaurants. Spicy maggi sauce is often on hand as a dressing. In the south, grilled fish is often sold at street stalls with fried plantain and cassava.

  Beware, though, that in some towns and villages off the beaten track a kebab may consist of less attractive animal parts: sinews and rubbery intestines, tripe and strips of hide.

  For snacks, street vendors often sell doughnuts, and peanuts sold in plastic bags. There are good breads, pastries and chocolate commonly available. Chestnut-sized dark red, white and pink kola nuts are widely popular. A mild stimulant that also suppresses hunger, they are chewed for their bitter juices rather than swallowed. Commonly exchanged between friends, they are good when travelling to offer to other passengers as well as to pep yourself up.

  Miondo, sticks made of pounded cassava wrapped in plantain leaves and steamed, can be bought ready-to-eat in places offering roasted fish, with three miondo (6 rings) typically costing around CFA100 (11p/22c) or one baton (a thicker stick) for CFA50.

  Coffee stalls are also common, often open only in the morning and typically serving instant coffee with a hunk of bread and butter or mayonnaise and

• perhaps various fillings.
• Fish is popular throughout the country, caught on the coast and in the lakes and rivers. Mackerel, sole and prawns are common.

  Eggs and bread are easy to obtain, but cheese far rarer. Fresh milk is rarely

• available and only dried and sterilised (UHT) long-life milk are easily obtained.

• Along the coast are coconuts, commonly covered in a green shell.

• Sweetcorn (or corn on the cob) is commonly sold roasted or boiled, and peanut butter is often sold at markets.

  Cameroon's great differences in climate and altitude also ensure a wide variety of fruit and vegetables being available, such as avocado, onion, sweet

• grapefruit, cucumber, mango, guava, paw paw, oranges (often green, yet ripe), sugar cane, tomato, various varieties of banana (including red-skinned), pineapple and papaya. Many are commonly available at markets. When potatoes are on a menu, they usually refer to sweet potatoes rather than normal potatoes. Aubergine (eggplant) is quite common, and can often be yellow, white or red.
• Dishes like soups, casseroles and stews are accompanied by rice or a thick, stodgy, bland, mashed dough, either couscous or fufu (or foufou or foutou) made from cassava, rice, banana, yam, plantain or corn.
• Cowpeas (wake), black-eyed beans, are often mashed and cooked as deep-fried balls called akara. Little brown-and-white beans known as pigeon peas are also widespread.
• When ordering chips (frites) there is often a choice, such as potato, yam or plantain.

  Vegetarianism

• Vegetarianism is little-known and vegetarian restaurants almost nonexistent, although Indian and Chinese restaurants in the cities often have vegetarian dishes. Pizzas, omelettes and chips made from root crops like potatoes or yam, are commonly available in towns and cities and boiled eggs and bread are commonly sold on the street. You can stock up on vegetables, fruit and nuts at the markets.

  Some Cameroonian dishes

  Ndole (or ndola), is made from a slightly bitter leaf that is similar to spinach, which

• is shredded and made with spices, groundnuts or melon seeds into a thick sauce often accompanying meat, shrimp or fish, and is especially popular around Douala and the south.

  Mbongo (or bongo) is a dish with a blackish sauce made from crushed and burnt spices and added to meat or fish, and especially popular in Littoral Province.

Popular in the northwest is njama-njama (or ama jama), made from a plant locally called huckleberry leaf and commonly eaten with corn chaff (maize cooked with beans, tomatoes, spices and palm oil).

Mintumba is a type of cassava-based bread.

Miondo are rather sticky sticks made of pounded cassava wrapped in plantain leaves and steamed. A real staple food in Cameroon, being cheap and filling, and usually eaten with fish or meat.

In the west a popular dish is condreh, plantains cooked with palm oil, meat and spices. Another dish of this region is khokki, a maize pudding cooked with yam leaves and palm oil.

Popular in the East Province is Ouinga, a traditional dish of meat with a sauce made from local herbs and lots of pepper.

In the Extreme North, folere is a popular dish of sauce with meat or fish accompanied by fufu. Baobab leaves are also prepared with meat or fish and eaten with fufu in this region. In the north, goat is the most popular meat used.

Bobolo, a southern dish, is baguette-shaped and made from cassava. Another southern dish, ebandjea, a dish prepared with fish, lemon, tomatoes and pepper, is popular around the coast.

Around Buéa eru is popular: ekok leaves cooked with smoked fish in palm oil and served with cassava fufu.

In the coastal areas of the South Province, ndomba, a highly spiced fish cooked in banana leaves, is popular.

Kwem (or nkwem) is a dish that is especially popular in the Centre Province and contains pounded cassava leaves and groundnuts cooked in palm oil. It is generally eaten with yam, plantain or cassava tubers.

Ekok, a finely chopped forest leaf, is often prepared in palm nut pulp and then grilled, and is also popular in the centre of the country.

Nbomba is steamed meat or fish wrapped in banana leaves, popular in the Yaoundé region.

Charwarmas, a Lebanese snack of grilled meat in bread with salad and sesame sauce, is also popular.

DRINKING

Coffee is often of the instant variety, and both tea and green tea are far more popular.

When sealed bottles of mineral water are not available, you could opt for soft drinks like Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta and lemonade, and various similar local concoctions, although there is no guarantee that the water used is clean. (Make sure you take the glass bottles back to the shop or stall as they are often returnable.)

Buvettes, small drinks stalls or simple bars, are common. Drinking beer is an extremely popular pastime in Cameroon; indeed bars, often no more than a wooden shack, spring up all over the place. Lagers are common, such as the ever popular Le 33 Export, Castel, Gold Harp and Beaufort are others. A strong version of Guinness is also popular.

A 50cl bottle of a common beer like 33, Castel or Beaufort will generally set you back around CFA400--500 (42--53p/75--94c) in a typical Cameroonian bar, ie: likely to be little more than a wooden shack, rising to CFA1,000 (£1.07/US$1.89) in a mid-range bar or restaurant and CFA1,500 (£1.60/US$2.83) in an expensive tourist hotel or restaurant. The prices are similar in the few places that sell draught beer (pression). Maddeningly, many bars have televisions blasting out the likes of Hawaii Five-O in French, so don't always count on a quiet drink.

You may get an opportunity to try a homemade beer, often made from maize, millet or sorghum, often strong, and cloudy in appearance. The millet beer found in the north is called bilibili, while a popular corn beer of the region is called kwatcha.

Potent palm wine (matango or white mimbo) made from palm sap, is also popular, especially in the south and west. It is often distilled into something resembling gin and known as afofo. Beware of the strong alcohol content, and also be aware that unpurified water is often added to the wine.