This is the first in a three-part series exploring the setbacks of transitioning from wood to LPG  in the town of Mbalmayo.

As I fine-tune the questions for our interview, Mama Vera Nkongo gently lights her charcoal stove to prepare stir-fried pasta, the meal her three children will take to school the next morning. The process requires patience and skill: a plastic scrap here, a few pieces of wood there, arranged into a cone before striking a match to ignite the fuel. She lives in Ngallan, a neighbourhood  in Mbalmayo, and has kindly agreed to share her kitchen story with me.

That same morning, I spoke with her husband about their cooking fuel choices since they settled here six years ago. This household is the sixth in a group of six families who welcomed me into their cooking spaces to help me better understand the daily decisions behind fuel usage. Among them, three primarily use biomass, while the other three rely mostly onGLP . These conversations aim to uncover the challenges families face when choosing cooking fuels and the reasoning behind their preferences.

Different fuels, same reality: Biomass is a common thread

In this article, women,  the ones responsible for cooking  are at the heart of the narrative. I call them Mama, in line with local custom, a term of respect. There’s Mama Esther, Mama Suzanne, and Mama Vera who mainly use biomass, and then there is Mama Cécile, Mama Jeanne, and Mama Marie who lean toward LPG.

 By now, Mama Suzanne’s cooking fire burns steadily in her cinderblock kitchen, pierced by a few openings that serve as windows. The walls, blackened by years of biomass cooking, bear witness to her daily routine. She places her pot of nuts on the stove, then steps outside to show me the different types of stoves she uses each day. Her testimony was translated from French to English for the purposes of this article.

“Today I’m using wood because it’s faster. But during family gatherings, I use the sawdust stove, it holds heat better. My grandsons pound the sawdust into the stove; they’re strong enough,” she says, smiling through sweat, catching her breath. Then she points to a smaller stove: “This one’s the medium sawdust stove. I use it to save wood. With this, I can cook a whole meal with just 100 francs worth of wood.” Finally, she shows me a tiny sawdust stove she uses just to reheat food.

At 65, Mama Suzanne has cooked with wood for over two decades. Now retired, she lives with her children and grandchildren, relying on their small businesses for income.

The same story echoes in the home of Mama Esther, in the Mbockulu neighbourhood. She mainly uses sawdust but turns to LPG to reheat dinner in the evenings. A physical education teacher, she also runs a small business selling grilled soy kebabs, cooked, of course, over a wood fire.

As for Mama Vera, her fuel routine alternates between wood and charcoal ; no sawdust here. A teacher and missionary, she tells me, “I’ve always cooked with firewood, since I was a child :even after I got married.”She prepares two to three large meals per week, which she later reheats on aLPG burner. At 43, she is the youngest among the women I interviewed.

Gas-Using Households: Never Without Wood

Even among families who primarily use LPG, firewood or charcoal is never far away ; often kept as a backup or used for specific dishes. “I’ve always cooked with gas ; even back home with my parents,” says Mama Marie who lives Mbockulu. “But when it comes to traditional dishes, I go back to the fire. Just yesterday, I made okok ; it takes time, so I used charcoal.”

Her neighbour, 66-year-old Mama Cécile, a widow, confesses: “I used to sell sawdust bags and cook with them too. But the market’s gotten tough, and with age, I stopped. I’ve cooked mostly with gas for the past three years. Still, when I make long-cooking meals like beans or greens, I go back to firewood at least three times a month.”

Then there is Mama Jeanne, 60, who lives in Newton  area with her son’s family. She sells firewood to make ends meet and also sells cleaned ndolè, a bitter leaf vegetable that requires long boiling to soften. Though she has been using LPG for five years, she still cooks with firewood weekly for her business.

A persistent bond: The emotional and practical ties to wood

Despite the convenience of LPG, wood continues to hold emotional and practical weight in Mbalmayo households. Even those with access to “clean” energy use wood for heavy, traditional meals.

So why not switch entirely to LPG? It’s the question many might ask. But as interviews reveal, the shift is anything but simple. For families that rely on biomass, the idea of using only LPG often seems unrealistic ; even unimaginable. Three recurring barriers emerged across the conversations:

 Clean Cooking, yes … But at What Cost?

In Mbalmayo, a 12.5 kg LPG cylinder costs 7,500 FCFA. For many households, this is a tough expense to manage within already tight budgets. The women I spoke with estimate that switching fully to LPG would triple their monthly cooking costs, reaching between 10,000 to 15,000 FCFA, compared to their current biomass spending.

“I buy charcoal at the market. But as for firewood, we have never paid for it since we moved here. We just gather fallen branches,” explains Mama Vera. A bag of charcoal costs her 6,000 FCFA and lasts about two months, roughly 3,000 FCFA a month in biomass expenses.

Mama Suzanne echoes this as she pounds boiled nuts to make « banane malaxée »:
“I have been using sawdust and scrap wood for over twenty years ; we collect it near the sawmill. Sometimes it’s free; sometimes it’s cheap.” She currently buys two bags of sawdust for 500 FCFA each and spends 1,000 FCFA a week on wood; totalling about 5,000 FCFA a month.

Mama Esther’s expenses are slightly higher at around 9,000 FCFA monthly.
« Gas is too expensive. I’ve never had a cylinder that lasts a full month,” she tells me — and she only uses it for reheating ».

What do the men think? Budget Guardians speak up

In some households, fuel decisions are shared.

Like in the Nkongo family. Mama Vera’s husband, Mr. Josué, understands the appeal of LPG, but also its limits. “My God, can you use gas exclusively? It’s so expensive! Maybe with your help, we could do it. But for now? Just one cylinder costs 7,500 FCFA — and you’d need three a month!” At 22,500 FCFA a month, the cost is nearly seven times their current charcoal budget. That alone is enough to cool their dreams of an energy transition.

Even for LPG users: economic reality shapes habits

Despite adopting LPG, many households keep their traditional practices, meal prepping, budgeting, supplementing with wood. A LPG cylinder might last from three weeks to three months, depending on usage. But the high price remains a real barrier, even for LPG adopters.

“If I cook beans with gas, the cylinder won’t last the month,” says Mama Marie. Mama Cécile agrees. She prefers to pre-cook beans or vegetables over firewood before warming them with LPG.

In the end, these families combine modernity with tradition, LPG with firewood; striving to balance budget and efficiency, often with support from spouses or children.

Wood fire, it tastes better! A matter of taste

“There are dishes that can only be cooked with wood. Gas is fine, but with wood, the taste… My God! When you eat, Jesus Christ of Nazareth! That’s when you know that Cameroon is truly Cameroon!”

Mr. Nkongo, with a sparkling gaze, thus expresses his family’s attachment to cooking with wood, which goes beyond economic considerations to touch on the very essence of the authenticity of traditional dishes.

This passion for wood cooking is not unique to Mr. Nkongo. The three women cooking with biomass that I met, all of whom have been accustomed to cooking with wood since their childhood, share a similar sentiment. Mama Esther, focused on preparing her simmering peanut sauce, simply confides:
” When it’s cooked with wood, it’s better. The flavour comes out so much better over the wood fire… You have Koki, you have Eru, you have Zom, even Ndolé. Most traditional dishes, when you cook them with fire, the taste is incomparable.”

For Mama Vera, there is simply no substitute: certain traditional dishes cannot be cooked on LPG. She specifies: “The taste, it’s different. Firewood is better than LPG, but not for all dishes… For dishes like fufu corn, like Koki, Kwacucu, (…) traditional dishes with firewood are best and taste best.”

These statements reflect the idea that cooking with wood is not only a resource but a pillar of the authenticity and richness of the flavours that define local cuisine. Culinary traditions, passed down since childhood, remain deeply ingrained in the daily lives of these women and their families, and taste is not just a matter of preference, it is part of their cultural identity.

The taste perception for those who cook with LPG

When I asked whether the taste of dishes varies depending on the fuel used, Mama Jeanne is the only one to make a clear distinction:
“There are dishes that can be prepared on gas, but some are really better over wood fire.”
However, for Mama Marie and Mama Cécile, there is no noticeable difference; the taste remains the same, though they acknowledge the existence of this long-standing debate.

This question whether firewood truly enhances the taste of food remains open. While it’s widely discussed among cooks and families, there is little scientific evidence to settle the matter. One way to explore it could be through comparative tastings, perhaps even televised cooking challenges involving chefs preparing the same dish with different fuels.

Therefore, faced with these two perceptions of taste, the challenge lies in reconciling the energy transition with the preservation of traditional flavours.

When burners don’t keep up: Large pots and LPG stove burner incompatibility

In traditional Cameroonian cooking, the use of large ceramic pots is common, especially for large families, in order to prepare large quantities of food. These robust pots, with thick bottoms and wide sides, are designed to withstand the intense heat of wood fire.

However, with the shift to stoves, a technical difficulty quickly becomes apparent. The burners on LPG stoves, often too small (with burners of 10 to 12 cm in diameter), cannot support the imposing size of traditional pots. The mothers I spoke with, such as Madame Suzanne, Mama Esther, and Mama Vera, explain that this incompatibility presents a major problem. The pots, which often exceed 50 cm in diameter, do not heat evenly on these smaller burners, making it impossible to cook properly.

“Like Fufu, you cannot turn it on top of gas. Fufu with corn flour you cannot, because fufu with corn flour, the fire must be constant, and when turning, the pot will be shaking, and there is no one to come and hold the pot with you,” explains Mama Esther, with a regretful expression.

The stability of the ceramic pot on the LPG burner is a concern. With firewood, all it takes is placing the pot on three well-positioned stones to ensure its balance. But on an LPG stove, instability often prevails. Mama Suzanne, already in the process of filtering her nuts to extract the oil for her meal, draws my attention to this issue: “There’s fufu made from corn, especially fufu made from cassava, it pulls! When you stir on the stove, the pot wobbles; it can’t stay stable like it does on a wood fire, because with the three stones we place, the pot is stable, and you can support it with your foot,” she says, mimicking the scene with her feet.

For Mama Vera, the difference is even more pronounced with dishes requiring a hot and adjustable fire, like Koki. “If I think about cooking Koki, I could never think of doing it on gas. Koki needs real heat, a fire that’s strong and constant. Gas has its limits, you can’t increase the flame like you can with wood. With wood, you have that control, you can adjust the fire’s intensity to your liking.”

But this viewpoint is not reserved only for mothers who traditionally cook with wood. Mama Cécile, whom I found preparing cassava fufu on her LPG stove, confides that she only uses LPG for small quantities. “If I had to make a large pot, I would go back to wood, because it’s better suited for the size of the pot.” She adjusts the cloth she is using to hold one of the pot handles to ensure its stability before continuing to pound the cassava fufu over the fire.

Hence, although LPG is perceived as a modern and cleaner alternative, wood still holds an essential place in Mbalmayo kitchens. The reasons are multiple: the economic aspect, the easy access to resources, and above all, the preservation of the beloved flavours of traditional dishes.
However, as some women point out, these flavours can also be achieved with LPG, or at least, they notice no real difference, suggesting that with more exposure, education, and familiarity, a broader shift in perception and practice might be possible.

In the next article, we will broaden the discussion by turning to energy and public health experts, who will offer a deeper analysis of the risks associated with biomass cooking and the opportunities set up by the local government to accelerate the change of flame.