The Bambara (Bamanan) people announce the birth of a baby girl with the saying "den be gwaso la," "the child is in the kitchen." In Mali, cuisine is the exclusive domain of women. Only since the colonial era have men entered into this domain, either as house servants (called "boys") or, later, in restaurants, where, as in Europe or the United States, chefs are usually men.

Starting from simple cooking techniques (boiling and grilling) and sometimes limited by the lack of variety of food supplies, Malian cuisine has historically been dominated by a concern for quantity rather than quality. As a result of greater contact with the cities, which has introduced new products and vegetables of European origin to rural villages, the formerly frugal diet of most of the countryside, based almost exclusively upon the processing of local products, is evolving toward greater refinement and sophistication.