The great thing about Gambian food - if you're hungry - is its massive calorific value. Although less bulky alternatives are usually available, most meals consist of a pile of the staple diet plus a sauce or stew.

By far, the Gambians' favourite staple is rice but couscous, tiny grains of durum wheat flour known locally as coos, is also common, as are root crops such as cassava.

Sauces can be based on palm oil (thick, copper-coloured and harvested from the oil palm trees found along the Gambian coast and in the better watered areas up-country) on groundnut paste(local peanut butter), okra (five-sided, green pods with a high slime content which is much appreciated), various beans, and the leaves of sweet potatoes and cassava amongst others.

All are usually spiced with chillies and seasoned with stock cubes. The more expensive, or festive, 'sauces' contain fish, beef, chicken or mutton. Beef and chicken, being relatively pricey, may be reserved for special occasions; eggs are always available. Wild boar ('bush pig') and large, herbivorous rodents ('bush rat'), the commonest varieties of meat, can be delicious, if carefully prepared.

The most standard dish is chicken yassa - chicken marinated with onion, lime, garlic and chilli served with rice - delicious when prepared well, but sometimes just casseroled fowl with a searing sauce. Domadah (in Mandinka) or mafe (in Wolof) is invariably good, a rich peanut stew often made with palm oil, bitter tomatoes and chicken or beef, again served with rice.

Benachin (which means 'one pot' in Wolof) is a chunky fish stew, essentially fish and rice, sometimes with vegetables.

You'll find quite good French-style bread, known as tapalapa and prepared by the village baker.

Download a sample menu (Word doc/160kb)

Have a look at the Madina Salaam Village tour

See a large map of the Gambia