TABLE OF CONTENTS
Best African Dairy Product Types
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Niter kibbeh is a popular Ethiopian and Eritrean product that is also the secret ingredient in many popular regional dishes. Essentially, it is slowly-simmered clarified butter with the addition of spices such as garlic, onions, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and fenugreek, imparting a unique, spicy aroma to the final product.
Complex and rich, this butter variety is quite versatile: it can be used when cooking sauces, eggs, and vegetables, but it is also often brushed on injera flatbreads.
Camel herding is deeply rooted in the life, culture, and tradition of the Karrayyu, an ancient nomadic pastoralist tribe living in Ethiopia. Karrayyu herders residing in the Fantalle district have a long tradition of camel milking, camel milk production, and consumption of fresh camel milk, which, along with barley, has been an essential food source for the tribe.
Milking typically happens twice a day, and the milk is traditionally collected in grass-woven vessels before being sold in nearby towns. Distinguished by a unique, savory, and aromatic flavor, fresh Karrayyu herder’s milk has a pure white color and thick foam on its surface.
In Kenya’s region of western Pokot, village communities have produced an unusual dairy product for generations – a yogurt made from cow’s or goat’s milk, combined with the ashes of the native tree known as cromwo. Raw milk ferments inside dried hollow gourds, and the ash is then added for an aromatic note.
The ash also gives the yogurt its unusual, light grey color. Nowadays, the yogurt is produced only by a few families for their own needs, while surplus is not so often, and it is typically sold at local markets. The milk from cows and goats is not combined, but used to produce two different varieties of yogurt – cow’s milk yogurt for men, and goat’s milk yogurt for women and children due to its high nutritional value.
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