COPPERWhat is the national dish of Liberia?
Liberia has no official national dish. Dumboy, boiled cassava pounded into a smooth dough and eaten with soup, is the dish named in lists of national dishes, while jollof rice and palm butter soup are the other common answers. All three rest on the country's staples: rice, cassava and red palm oil.
Why Liberia has no single national dish
No law, decree or government body has named a Liberian national dish, and the sources do not agree. Lists of national dishes give dumboy. Food guides on national dishes pick jollof rice. Liberian food writers describe palm butter soup as one of the most popular and culturally significant dishes in the country.
What they share is the base of every Liberian meal. Rice is the staple, served "dry" with chicken or corned beef, with a stew or soup poured over it, cooked into jollof, or ground into flour for "country breh" (bread). Cassava, plantain and red palm oil complete the picture. The cuisine also carries African American influence through the Americo-Liberians, along with Caribbean recipes.
What is dumboy?
Dumboy is pounded cassava. The root is boiled, then pounded into a smooth starchy dough. It is close to fufu, with one difference: Liberian fufu is made from dried cassava, while dumboy uses freshly boiled cassava.
Both are eaten by hand with heavy soups spiced with habanero and Scotch bonnet. In the northeast, a regional pounded-cassava dish called glea-gbar, known as GB or "geebee", is served with a spicy mixed-meat soup. Our palava sauce is one of the soups you would pair with dumboy.
Liberian jollof rice
Jollof is cooked across West Africa, and Liberia is one of the countries that compete over who makes the best one, a rivalry that grew into the "Jollof Wars" in the mid-2010s. Liberian jollof seldom includes seafood.
Our Liberian jollof rice cooks chicken, salt pork and smoked ham in red palm oil. The tomato paste is fried for 10 minutes over low heat until it darkens and the oil rises to the surface, then the rice cooks covered on the lowest heat for 30 minutes without stirring, until a crust forms at the bottom. It is often served with fried plantains and coleslaw.
Palm butter and the other Liberian soups
Palm butter soup is traced to the Grebo and Kru peoples. Palm nuts are boiled, pounded and strained to extract a thick red palm cream, which becomes the base of the soup with peppers, onions, smoked fish and meat. It is served with rice or fufu.
Liberians call most of their stews "soups". The best known:
- Palava sauce: jute leaves, called "plateau", stewed in a broth.
- Cassava leaf, or "gbassajama": ground cassava leaves braised in broth with red palm oil.
- Toborghee: African eggplants stewed with fermented palm oil, associated with the Lorma people of Lofa.
- Potato greens: the leaves of the sweet potato plant, widely grown and eaten.
- Bitterleaf, peanut soup and pepper soup, eaten with fufu or rice.
Other dishes to know from Liberia
Liberia also has a baking tradition: cornbread, sour bread, rice bread, banana bread and cakes. Cassava bread belongs to it, a dense sweet bake in which grated cassava, drained in a cloth, replaces most of the flour, spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon and loosened with coconut milk.
Next door, Sierra Leone eats many of the same leaf stews; see the national dish of Sierra Leone. You will find all three Liberian dishes on our page about the food of Liberia, and the neighbouring kitchens in our guide to West African food.
The recipes
- Jollof rice🇱🇷 Liberia · 1 hour and 45 minutes
Palava sauce🇱🇷 Liberia · 2 hours
Cassava bread🇱🇷 Liberia · 2 hours and 30 minutes
Questions people ask
What is the national dish of Liberia?
Liberia has no official national dish. Dumboy is the one named in lists of national dishes, and jollof rice and palm butter soup are the other usual answers.
What is the difference between dumboy and fufu?
Both are pounded cassava eaten with soup. Liberian dumboy is made from boiled cassava, while fufu is made from dried cassava, and sometimes from plantain or taro.
What is palava sauce made of?
Palava sauce is made with jute leaves, called plateau in Liberia, stewed in broth. Our version cooks potato greens or jute leaves in red palm oil with beef and smoked fish.
How is Liberian jollof different?
It is cooked in red palm oil with meats such as chicken, salt pork and ham, and it seldom includes seafood.
What is palm butter soup?
A Liberian soup made from palm cream extracted by boiling, pounding and straining palm nuts, cooked with pepper, onion, smoked fish and meat, and served with rice or fufu.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of Liberia: 12 dishes to know
- What is the national dish of Benin?
- What is the national dish of Burkina Faso?
- What is the national dish of Cabo Verde?
- What is the national dish of Côte d'Ivoire?
- What is the national dish of The Gambia?