In Timbuktu as in Djenné, the meal is not conceived as starter-main-dessert but around a starch base — a firm paste of millet or sorghum (tô), a fonio couscous, or rice from the Niger Delta — shared by hand from a large communal dish. Over this base is poured a single, long-simmered sauce that carries the flavor: leaves, néré ferment, river fish. Cool drinks and date sweets accompany or extend this center, depending on ordinary days, celebrations, or charitable works at the mosque.

Fermented néré seeds (African locust bean), dried and pressed into dark brown-black balls with a powerful aroma. It has been the 'stock cube' of Sahelian cuisines for centuries: it gives sauces an inimitable fermented depth and umami. Along with it, grains of paradise (melegueta pepper) mark the spicy warmth characteristic of West Africa, long before any chili from the Americas.