Chadian cooking is hearty, simple, and built around grains and sauces. The cuisine divides roughly along the country's north-south cultural line: the Muslim north leans toward Arab and Sahelian flavors, while the Christian and animist south has more variety in vegetables and preparation styles. Either way, you will eat well if you adjust your expectations. This is not restaurant food. It is home cooking and market food, and it is deeply satisfying once you get the hang of it.
Boule is the national staple, a thick porridge made from millet or sorghum flour. The flour is mixed with water and left to ferment overnight, which gives it a distinctive sour tang. It is served in a mound and eaten by hand, tearing off pieces and dipping them into accompanying sauces and stews. You will eat boule at nearly every meal. In the south, the dipping sauces are called biya; in the north, alysh.
Daraba is one of the best of those sauces, a rich stew of okra, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes thickened with peanut butter. It is creamy and filling, and widely available in the south. Kissar, thin millet pancakes, are common in the north and make a good breakfast with tea. Dried and smoked fish shows up in sauces across the country, especially near Lake Chad and the southern rivers.
Meat is more common in the north, where grilled lamb and goat are staples. In N'Djamena and larger towns, you will find grilled meat vendors (grilleurs) along the roadside in the evenings. The meat is served with raw onions, mustard, and sometimes a fiery chili paste.
For drinks, karkanji is ubiquitous, a deep red iced tea brewed from dried hibiscus flowers and sweetened with sugar, often spiced with ginger, clove, or cinnamon. It is refreshing and slightly tart. Jus de fruit, fresh juice made from mango, guava, or tamarind, is available at market stalls in season. In the south, bili-bili, a millet beer, is the social drink of choice, brewed locally and served in calabash gourds. Tea culture in the north follows the Sahelian tradition: tiny glasses of sweet green tea brewed three times, each round progressively weaker and sweeter.
Finding food outside of N'Djamena and the larger towns can be a challenge. If you are traveling into remote areas, bring supplies. In the cities, small restaurants (gargotes) and market stalls are the best bet for authentic Chadian food at low prices.