File:Joal Fadiouth women preparing millet to make couscous flour ....jpg

English: Fadiouth Island Salted Millet Couscous

Fadiouth village sits on this island covered in seashells and is accessible from Joal (150km south of Dakar) via a long narrow wooden pedestrian bridge. The seerer, the Indigenous people who live here, have always been the main producers of sunnà millet and make their living from agriculture and fishing in the sea and lagoons.

The local preparation of salted couscous is long and laborious, requiring at least two days to obtain a quality product. After finishing their domestic chores, the women come together towards the evening to prepare the millet to make the flour: the grain is husked in a wooden mortar and pestle, sifted and washed in the sea. It is then ground (using electric mills or by hand) and the resulting semolina is wet with seawater and worked by hand to transform it into tiny couscous pellets (covered with the dry semolina to keep them from sticking) that are then sifted. This process continues until all of the semolina has been transformed into tiny couscous beads. At this point, the product is stored in traditional gourd containers, covered with a cloth and left to ferment overnight. In the morning the women add powdered leaves of baobab - used as a thickener - and start cooking.