Food Notes: Pap

I ate pap, a ground maize (called "mielie-meal" here) porridge nearly every day during my trip to Mpumalanga.  I like it best when it has a pudding-like rather than firm texture.  It reminds me of and looks just like grits, one of my favorite foods that I ate while growing up in Virginia and still like to eat (although it's not especially practical cooking grits for one person, the way they stick to the side of the pan).  I always preferred savory grits heaped with butter, salt, and pepper (and preferably served with a gravy) to the sweet, syrupy breakfast grits I would sometimes be asked to eat. 

Pap is a staple food enjoyed mostly by the indigenous black populations and Afrikaner populations here, so at the first dinner we shared together in Hazyview, M and Mrs. G wanted to know if I actually ate pap.  The Lodge we were staying at didn't make especially good pap in my opinion - it was too firm (almost like a hard polenta) - but I had some much more tender pap while we were staying with D's family in Mahushu.  After I told M we call the same basic dish "grits" in the US (apparently the only difference is that grits tend to be made from yellow kernel maize and pap from white kernel so the whole kernel can be used for the meal), she started calling it "grits" too just for fun.

Although in some areas pap is primarily a breakfast food (apparently in the Cape provinces), in Mpumalanga we ate it as an accompaniment with savory meat dishes (usually stewed beefs or chicken) and often with a side of chakalaka.  This is a spicy African vegetable relish that is delicious!  I must remember to bring a jar of it with me and get a recipe for it before I leave.

The funniest part about pap is trying to wrestle with it when you stir it while cooking it on a stove top.  It almost reminds me of trying to battle "the blob" from the classic horror movie.  In this picture, S and P, sit by the large pot of pap they cooked for our final day's meal at our Muhushu workshop.  Battling with the pap is much easier when you have a large pot and spoon to cook it.

Comments

[Terra]

Pap sounds a lot like something Eddy told me he used to eat all the time in Zanzibar. You'll have to make it for me when you get back--23 days and counting!

[mar]

it's a little longer than that - sorry T - I land on Saturday morning of the 26th

[Frank]

Two things you must try:

grillades & grits
shrimp & grits (Oxford, Mississippi style)

[moira]

I think mieliemeal, grits and white cornmeal are all similar. Maybe just
a texture difference

[Viagra vs Cialis]

I haven't tasted pap, but I've heard a lot of positives comments about it's flavor.