Shangane of Eswatini

Sishwala

Thick maize porridge served under meat or vegetables, the base of the Swazi plate. Stiffer than pap and eaten with the hand.

Serves 6 · 35 minutes

Emasi Emabele

also Sorghum with soured milk

Cooked sorghum eaten with thick soured milk, the Eswatini breakfast and the food most closely tied to the country's cattle-keeping tradition.

Serves 4 · 1 hour, plus 2 days souring

Emasi Emabele

Sorghum porridge served with emasi, thick soured milk, the dish Swazis name as their own. Eaten cold in hot weather and central to the Incwala ceremony's food.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes, plus souring

Sishwala Nekukhwaya

Maize porridge with peanut relish, sold at markets and roadside stands. Cheap, quick and the standard working lunch.

Serves 4 · 40 minutes

Umkhunsu

Beef dried, salted and then cooked, prepared when an animal is slaughtered for a ceremony and there is more meat than can be eaten fresh.

Serves 8 · 3 days drying, then 1 hour

Tinkhobe

Whole boiled maize kernels, sometimes with beans, eaten as a meal in itself. Slow to cook and filling, and what a household falls back on.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking

Buganu

Marula fruit wine brewed by women each February, celebrated with a national ceremony at which the first of the season is presented to the Queen Mother.

Serves Makes about 5 litres · 3 to 5 days

Xima

also Ncima

Maize meal cooked stiff and eaten with fish, greens or matapa. The base of the Mozambican plate from Maputo to the Rovuma.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Mucapata

also Mung bean rice, Arroz com feijão verde

Rice cooked with mung beans and coconut milk, a northern Mozambican dish showing the Indian Ocean's long reach into the Swahili coast's cooking.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Matapa

Pounded cassava leaves cooked with coconut milk, groundnut and crab or prawn, Mozambique's national dish. The pounding is done in a wooden mortar and takes an hour.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Frango Piri-Piri

Chicken spatchcocked, marinated in bird's eye chilli, garlic and lime and grilled over charcoal, then basted repeatedly. Mozambique's best-known export to the world's high streets.

Serves 4 · 1 hour, plus overnight marinating

Caril de Camarão

Prawn curry in coconut milk with cashew, from a coast that supplies both. Made for Sundays and celebrations and served with rice.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Badjias

Fritters of ground cowpeas or split peas with onion and chilli, fried and sold in cones on Maputo's streets. An Indian Ocean arrival that became Mozambican.

Serves Makes 24 · 40 minutes, plus 4 hours soaking

Galinha à Zambeziana

also Zambezia chicken

Chicken grilled with a coconut, lime and piri-piri baste from Quelimane and the Zambezia coast — richer and less fiercely hot than the southern piri-piri chicken.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Sura

Coconut palm wine tapped along the northern coast, drunk sweet the same morning or sour by evening. Sold from bottles at the roadside in Nampula and Cabo Delgado.

Serves Varies · Tapped daily

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