Savanna Staple · Peanut Sauce
Foutou Igname, Sauce Arachide
Photo: Aboukam / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
It's the groundnuts, not the yam, that mark this dish as distinctly northern — peanut farming is concentrated in Ivory Coast's savanna belt, from Korhogo east to Bondoukou.
Pounded yam foutou is served with a rich, ground-peanut stew simmered with tomato, onion and chili until thick and glossy. It's a staple across Ivory Coast's northern savanna towns, where groundnuts are a major local crop.
Why it's made this way: Peanut (groundnut) sauce is explicitly a northern-savanna dish here, contrasting with the palm-nut sauces of the humid south — a reflection of which crops actually grow well in each climate zone.
More from Ivory Coast
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