#35 Guinea-Bissau
- Jen
- Mar 31, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 4, 2022
I’m so excited to be away from the Pacific Ocean! I haven’t been to Africa since country number 18 (Egypt)!
One of the ten Portuguese-speaking countries, Guinea-Bissau is situated in West Africa, nestled between Senegal to the north, Guinea to the south and east and the ocean to the west.
It was formally known as Portuguese Guinea, to distinguish it from neighbouring French Guinea (now just Guinea). When independence from Portugal was gained in 1974, they stuck the name of the capital city, Bissau, on the end to avoid confusion with the other Guinea.
The geography is coastal plains and inland savannah flatlands. Rice is grown near to the coast and millet inland. You will also find tomatoes, peanuts, cassava, plantains, sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas in many of the local dishes.
A typical dish might be rice with fish. Meat, including chicken, pork and goat, is often stewed with a peanutty sauce.
As well as plentiful peanuts, cashews are the main cash(ew) crop for export in Guinea-Bissau. The economy of this country, that is one of the world’s poorest, is actually so dependent on cashews that it really suffers when the global price of cashews drops. There are therefore a number of incentives for farmers to diversify into crops such as mangos and avocados. Avocados have formed part of the local diet since the 19th century when they were introduced from the Americas.
Cashews aren’t just for eating! They also use them to make cashew rum by fermenting and distilling the fruit surrounding the cashews. I can’t find anything online to tell me what this tastes like but feni in Goa, India is made from cashews so it might be a little bit like this. Below is a photo of me after tasting cashew feni in Goa…
We cannot visit this region without a big shout out to fufu! It is a staple in Guinea-Bissau and all over West and Central Africa. It’s a boiled, mashed very dense dough to provide calories alongside soups and stews. It usually involves pounding boiled cassava or plantains into dough but can also be made from maize flour. It’s eaten with the fingers by tearing off a piece and rolling into a ball to scoop up, or dip into, the soup or stew.
Abacate com atum
Stuffed avocado with tuna is a popular Bissau-Guinean (the correct adjective) appetizer, or a Wednesday lunchtime treat in my case, where avocado is mixed with tuna, coconut and evaporated milk and presented in the avocado skins.
I substituted the evaporated milk for mayonnaise and also added a diced tomato, lemon juice and some hot sauce to liven it up a bit.
What a treat this was! I used albacore tuna, which is a milder tasting tuna, and it was surprisingly light considering that most of the ingredients are fat-based. I enjoyed this spread on some plain rice cakes because it needs some crunch. It also very much needs the hot sauce! It’s probably a bit much for an appetizer, unless you can find particularly small avocados, but an excellent lunch, especially when it’s the first al fresco lunch of the year!
See you in…REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO.
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