The One You’ve All Been Waiting For: HOW TO MAKE A CORNMEAL MUSH PATTY!

It’s called xima (pronounced “shee-mah”) and it’s the entire country’s lunch, dinner, and sometimes breakfast.  It’s a ball of cooked cornflour and water. It’s the texture of grits, and the viscosity of leftover oatmeal. If you don’t learn to like it, you will not survive, and you definitely will not be Mozambican. I can just hear your stomachs grumbling and your mouths watering.

Xima is the ideal stomach filler. It’s like the color black – you can wear it with anything, except some shades of brown and navy blue (likewise, chocolate xima is not tasty, nor xima with blueberry jam or blue airheads). Xima doesn’t have much flavor, so it goes with beans, fish, chicken, tomatoes, leaves – all the flavorful foods that exist here. The sole purpose of its existence is to make the barriga feel full, and indeed, I just ate 2 balls of xima (with tomatoes) and now it feels like there are rocks in my stomach.

Xima does its job to squelch hunger pangs, but when it’s 94% of your diet, it lacks in nutrition. It’s just cornflour and water, and it’s the bulk of every meal. The remainder is a couple bites of chicken, or a spoonful of cooked leaves (leafy greens, not oak tree leaves), or beans. Lots of starch, few veggies and protein. I think that’s why I feel hungry all the time but still managed to gain the Africa 15.

So, in case you ever want to try this at home:

Cornmeal Mush Patties

Preparation time: 6 months

1. Plant a cornfield

2. Pick and shuck corn

3. Pop kernels off cobs

4. Pound kernels using a pilão (a giant mortar and pestle, as tall as I am) to remove shells

5. Grind pounded kernels at the mill to make cornflour, then spread flour out to dry

6. Boil water with a little bit of cornflour, for about 10 minutes

7. Put in a more handfuls of cornflour until thick, stir vigorously with a wooden stick for another 10 minutes

8. Serve into balls/patties using a special spoon called a concha, that makes them all nice and smooth and round

9. Eat with hands: break off a chunk, roll it into a ball and use it to scoop up food

10. Feel disgustingly full

11. Be hungry again 2 hours later, and eat the leftovers you meant to save for breakfast


Bom apetite!