Fanmilk – oh my god, this is ridiculously good. It’s probably full of chemicals, but who cares? It’s a sophisticated version of the home-made yogurt and lait caillé you can buy in little plastic sachets everywhere I’ve been in West/Central Africa. As Lauren said, it tastes like vanilla frosting. Evidently there is another more yogurt-esque variety and a chocolate kind. And if they have it in Togo and Burkina Faso, why oh why isn’t it here in Mali? 
Igname Pilée and Cheese – This is one of the dishes I was served by Lauren’s host family. The mound is smashed yams – and I mean smashed. Two women put them in a mortar and take turns thumping them with a pestle. It’s a serious endeavour – did someone decide that Beninese women don’t work enough and they should burn yet more calories changing the texture of boiled yams? Some of the lumps in the sauce is this homemade cheese, mild, shaped in disks and dyed red, and then fried and served in tomato sauce. (With some okra, yuck. Flashbacks to Batéké sauces!) I meant to get a picture of the uncooked stuff. It’s really good – I definitely approve.
Ginger/peanut cookie – found these at one of the rest stops on the way to Natitingou. I bought them just b/c I’m always curious about food, and they turned out to be really good. Sweet and brittle with that lovely throat-stinging ginger after-effect.
Beer – Benin’s beer is called La Béninoise; Gabon’s beer was called Régab; Mali has no national beer, unsurprisingly. The label is from a Castel and it says – yup – Bière de Pâques. Easter beer. What next, the official beer of the Stations of the Cross?
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