Bakgalagadi

Bogobe

Sorghum porridge, cooked plain or soured, the traditional staple before maize arrived. Bogobe jwa logala is the fermented version, eaten for breakfast.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Dikgobe

also Samp and beans, Dikgobe tsa ditloo

Cracked maize cooked with bambara groundnuts or cowpeas until soft, the Botswana staple that appears at every funeral, wedding and kgotla gathering.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes, plus soaking

Seswaa

Beef or goat boiled with nothing but salt until it falls apart, then pounded in the pot. Botswana's national dish, cooked by men at weddings and funerals in three-legged pots.

Serves 8 · 3 hours 30 minutes

Magwinya

also Fat cakes

Plain fried dough balls sold from tins at every bus rank and school gate, eaten with polony, atchar or nothing at all.

Serves Makes 20 · 2 hours

Serobe

Tripe and offal cooked slowly with the intestines cleaned and cut fine, served at weddings and funerals alongside seswaa. Nothing of the animal is wasted.

Serves 8 · 3 hours

Morogo wa Dinawa

Wild or cowpea leaves cooked with onion and sometimes groundnut, eaten with bogobe. Gathered rather than grown, and the dish that carries households through the dry season.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Phane

also Mopane worms, Madora

The caterpillar of the emperor moth, harvested off mopane trees, gutted, dried and then stewed with tomato and onion. High in protein, seasonal, and a genuine delicacy in Botswana.

Serves 4 · 1 hour

Madila

Milk soured in a hide or gourd until it thickens, drunk on its own or poured over bogobe. The pastoral household's preservation method and its breakfast.

Serves 6 · 2 to 3 days

Pap and Chakalaka

Maize porridge with a spiced vegetable relish, eaten at braais and in townships across the country. Chakalaka was invented on the mines and has spread everywhere since.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Umngqusho

also Samp and beans, Isitambu

Cracked dried maize and sugar beans cooked slowly together with onion and butter, the Xhosa staple and, famously, Nelson Mandela's favourite food.

Serves 6 · 3 hours, plus overnight soaking

Bobotie

Spiced mince baked under a savoury custard with bay leaves standing in it, a Cape Malay dish and South Africa's most-cited national plate.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Boerewors

also Farmer's sausage, Wors

Coarse beef sausage spiced with coriander, clove and vinegar, coiled in a spiral and grilled over coals. The South African braai is not a braai without it.

Serves 8 · 1 hour, plus overnight resting

Bunny Chow

A quarter loaf of white bread hollowed out and filled with curry, invented in Durban's Indian community and eaten with the hands, no cutlery permitted.

Serves 4 · 2 hours

Braai with Boerewors

Meat grilled over wood coals, with boerewors coiled in a spiral. A braai is a national institution with its own public holiday, and gas is not accepted.

Serves 8 · 2 hours

Potjiekos

also Potjie, Three-legged pot stew

Meat and vegetables layered in a cast-iron pot over coals and left for hours without stirring, so each layer stays itself. The South African outdoor cooking ritual.

Serves 8 · 4 hours

Koeksisters

also Koesister, Syrup plaits

Plaited dough fried and dropped straight into ice-cold syrup so the outside stays crisp and the inside floods with sugar. A South African argument between the Afrikaans plait and the Cape Malay spiced ball.

Serves Makes about 24 · 1 hour, plus chilling the syrup overnight

Cape Malay Denningvleis

Lamb stewed with tamarind, allspice and onions until sour-sweet and dark, from the Cape Malay kitchen built by people brought to the Cape as slaves from Southeast Asia.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Rooibos Tea

Red bush tea from the Cederberg, the only place on earth it grows, drunk without milk or as an espresso-style red cappuccino. Naturally caffeine-free.

Serves 4 · 15 minutes

Oshifima

also Oshithima

Pearl millet porridge cooked stiff, the staple of the Ovambo north where mahangu grows on sand that supports little else.

Serves 6 · 35 minutes

Oshifima wa Mahangu

also Pearl millet porridge, Oshithima

Pearl millet flour beaten into a stiff white porridge, the staple of Namibia's north and the food that makes the Ovambo agricultural year make sense.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Potjiekos

Meat and vegetables layered in a three-legged cast-iron pot and cooked over coals for hours without stirring. As much a social occasion as a recipe.

Serves 8 · 4 hours

Kapana

Thin strips of beef grilled fast over open fires at Katutura's market in Windhoek, dipped in chilli spice and eaten straight off the grill standing up.

Serves 6 · 20 minutes

Oshiwambo Chicken

Free-range chicken cooked with spinach and tomato in the northern style, served with oshifima at weddings and homecomings.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Biltong

Beef or game cured with vinegar, salt and coriander and air-dried, cut with the grain rather than against it. Namibia's game farms make some of the best there is.

Serves Makes 500g · 4 to 6 days

Omagungu

also Mopane worms, Omangungu

Mopane caterpillars dried and then fried or stewed, a seasonal delicacy of northern Namibia sold by the bucket in Oshakati market.

Serves 4 · 50 minutes

Oshikundu

Pearl millet and sorghum fermented for a day into a thick sour drink, brewed by women in the north and drunk by everyone from children upward.

Serves Makes 3 litres · 1 day