The World Bake! (Part V)

I spoke too soon.

All too frequently the whirlwind of life comes around and threatens to whisk me away — so off I go. 
Well, at least we're almost halfway through this blog series, onto the 5th country: Swaziland!

From my research, because Swaziland, Mozambique, and South Africa are in the same general region, a lot of the recipes intermingle.  Swaziland does have its own distinct voice, however.  According to Wikipedia, corn is a large food staple, as well as Sorghum and GOAT.  Mmmmm … but unfortunately not the cheese. 
Well, I decided to make corn bread, which apparently, covers as a supplement to any heavily meaty meal — kind of like bread baskets for Italians, or baguette for French meals that you overstuff yourself on while waiting for the main courses, but probably less indulgent. 

Here is the source.

Swazi Cornbread Ingredients: 2 eggs, beaten 300 g wheat flour 3 tsp baking powder Generous pinch of salt 300 g corn meal (mealie meal) <– I have no idea what mealie meal is, but I used Quaker Cooking Instructions: Combine the eggs, flour, baking powder, salt and corn meal together in a bowl.  Add milk (Wait, what milk?  Whoever made this recipe was absent-minded.) to make a fairly watery dough. Allow to stand for five minutes then pour into a tin and bake in an oven pre-heated to 190°C for 30 minutes, or until cooked through and golden. Serve as an accompaniment to any Swazi main meal.

Swazi Mango Chutney Ingredients: 4 green mangoes 1 small onions 250 ml lemon juice 100 g salt 100 g sugar 2 hot chillies, finely sliced Cooking Instructions: Slice the mangoes and onion thinly. Lay slices of mangoes and chopped onion in a dish. Sprinkle the salt over the top and allow to stand for 1 hour. Dust-off excess salt, add all the ingredients to a pan and boil slowly until it thickens. Spoon into hot jars and seal.

To be honest, I didn't really enjoy the cornbread itself.  I think I'm too accustomed to "American" cornbread that has butter and oil and sugar and all kinds of delicious, fattening, and altogether not-very-good-for-you-defeating-the-purpose-of-using-a-vegetable-for-bread.  Swazi cornbread is drier and tastes like cardboard.  I mean if you're into that, then by all means try the recipe, but I'd rather whip up some corn muffins and have a picnic.  😉

It was like a giant corn brick that I could have thrown at someone.

The mango chutney was interesting to make.

They were better eaten together rather than apart, however, I'm still not sold. 

NEXT!