Senegal.

Rice is the axis of the Senegalese table, and not just any rice — riz brisé, the broken grains that arrived through colonial trade and stayed because cooks came to prefer them. Broken rice drinks up sauce in a way whole grains resist, which is exactly what a ceeb dish demands: the grain is never boiled in plain water but finished in the broth left behind by the fish or meat. Every ceeb follows the same architecture — cook the protein and vegetables in a heavily reduced onion-and-tomato base, lift them out, then cook the rice in what remains until the pot is dry and the bottom layer has caught into a toasted crust. That crust, xoon, is fought over.

The savoury backbone comes from fermentation. Nététou, the fermented seeds of the néré tree, goes in as pea-sized lumps that smell aggressive in the jar and turn round and meaty in the pot. Guedj is dried fermented fish, used as a seasoning rather than a protein, and yet — fermented sea snail — does a similar job with a sharper, muskier edge. Fresh aromatics arrive as pastes: rof, a green pounded mix of parsley, garlic, scallion and chilli that is stuffed into slashes cut in whole fish, and nokoss, the all-purpose onion, garlic and pepper paste many households keep a jar of in the fridge.

Fats carry the regional signature. Groundnut oil and thick unsweetened groundnut paste come from the peanut basin and give mafé its weight. Red palm oil, unrefined and deeply orange, is the mark of southern and coastal cooking and turns okra stew glossy. Sourness is never an afterthought: tamarind pulp in the fish broth, lemon by the litre in yassa, lime squeezed over fried fish and turnovers. That acid is what keeps rich, oily food from going heavy, and its absence is the most common fault in a home version.

Beyond rice, the grain map is millet. Steamed millet couscous — thiéré, finer and darker than semolina — carries lamb and vegetables at celebrations, and the same grain shows up sweetened in yoghurt for dessert or loosened into breakfast porridge. Mornings, though, mostly belong to the baguette: split and filled with bean stew, fried egg or leftover sauce, eaten standing up on the way to work. Street food follows the same logic of frying and folding — fataya turnovers, grilled meat at a dibiterie, fried fish and chips of cassava.

Regional differences are real but gentle. The north around Saint-Louis is the fish-and-rice heartland; Casamance in the humid south leans on palm oil, seafood and the lemon-mustard yassa method; the peanut basin around Kaolack sends groundnut paste to the entire country; and the Fulani herding areas of the Fouta contribute soured milk and dairy in a cuisine that is otherwise almost dairy-free.