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🌍 Country of the Week · A Spin the Globe Teacher's Guide
Sudan
SudanAfrica · This week's dish comes from Khartoum
About Sudan
Sudanese cooking bridges Arab and African worlds, built on sorghum, ful medames, and stews thickened with peanut or dried okra (weika). Flatbreads like kisra and gurasa scoop up richly spiced sauces.
The general word for the stews is mullah, and they are defined by what thickens them: groundnut paste in some, weika, dried and pounded okra, in others, seasoned with ni'aimiya. Asida, a soft wheat or sorghum mound, joins kisra and gurasa as the third of the starches, and the sauce is poured into a well pressed into the top of it.
Sudanese ful is dressed differently from the Egyptian version: sesame oil poured over rather than olive oil, crumbled white cheese on top, and the beans mashed only partly. Sesame is a major Sudanese crop, which is why its oil rather than another turns up at breakfast. Karkade, hibiscus steeped and cooled, is the drink alongside.
The wider picture: Fifty-four countries of tagines, stews, and fire-kissed grills.
This week's dish: Sahan Ful (Sudanese Fava Beans)
Slow-cooked fava beans crushed with cumin and lifted with tomato, onion and olive oil, the Sudanese breakfast of beans and bread.
Serves 4 · Prep 10 min · Cook 20 min · Difficulty: easy
See the full recipe: ingredients, steps and dietary swaps →
Grown-up jobs: any step that uses a hot stove, oven, boiling water, or a sharp knife is for a teacher or parent. Children can measure, mix, and assemble.
Discussion prompts
1. Find Sudan on a world map or globe. It sits in Africa. Which oceans or neighboring countries does it touch, and roughly how far is it from where you live?
2. Sahan Ful (Sudanese Fava Beans) comes from Khartoum, in Sudan. Read its ingredient list together. Which of those foods do you think are grown or raised nearby, and how might the country's climate and landscape explain that?
3. Read the short story behind Sahan Ful (Sudanese Fava Beans). How have the people, trade routes, and history of Sudan shaped what ends up on the plate there?
4. Compare Sahan Ful (Sudanese Fava Beans) to a dish your own family cooks. What is similar, what is different, and what one question would you ask a family in Sudan about how they make and share it?
5. After you cook Sahan Ful (Sudanese Fava Beans), add Sudan to a classroom map and give it a stamp. Write down one fact about its food or geography that you did not know this morning.
🌍 Spin the Globe · Geography through food · spintheglobeofficial.com/for-teachers