mealie-meal, noun

/ˈmi(ː)liˌmiːl/
Origin:
English, AfrikaansShow more mealie + English meal; or translation of Afrikaans mieliemeel (meel flour, meal).
1. Maize meal, white or yellow in colour and either coarsely- or finely ground. Also attributive. Cf. maizena.
1846 Natal Witness 10 JulyMarket Intelligence...Mealie Meal, 7s. 6d. per muid.
1852 Natal Times in W.C. Holden Hist. of Col. of Natal (1855) 282The consumption of mealie (maize) meal in D’Urban has increased.
1882 C. Du Val With Show through Sn Afr. II. 198A forward jerk of the bullocks toppled it over..the Boer tobacco-rolls..and a large bag of mealie meal being liberally distributed over the adjacent ‘Veld’.
1907 Zululand Times 5 Jan. (advt)Always in stock or to arrive: Boer meal, Bran,..Crushed Mealies, Mealie Meal.
1910 J. Buchan Prester John 73The native gave me good-day in Kaffir, then begged for tobacco or a handful of mealie-meal.
1911 M.J. Pullen in Farmer’s Weekly 4 Oct. 119I beg to state that the best food for young ducks..is mealie meal (raw) or mealie porridge.
1928 J.W.N. Moller What Every Hsewife Should Know 67In making cakes or biscuits for which rice flour is asked — and is not to hand, try mealie meal.
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 124His mill..is another boon..enabling him to take mealie-meal contracts for road-gangs.
1949 H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1969) 59You get your supper — a kind of mealie-meal soup and a hunk of bread, and you are locked up again for the night, and the day is over.
1955 A. Delius Young Trav. in S. Afr. 137These trading stations...were the chief sources of supply for the Bantu of everything from canned foods, mealie-meal and blankets to beads, banjos and mouth organs.
1971 Evening Post 27 Feb. (Mag. Sect.) 2The only food in the house that day was a loaf of mealie-meal bread.
1972 Fair Lady 19 Apr. 11Why is it so difficult to buy yellow unrefined mealie meal?
1982 E. Prov. Herald 18 June 13That first night we had to go and beg for food...A week later we got rations — half a bucket of mielie meal.
1983 Daily Dispatch 21 Mar. 8Per capita income is below the ‘mealie meal line’. To them the breadline would be ‘pure luxury’.
1983 Daily Dispatch 16 June 3Doctors have unanimously agreed that mealie-meal..should be vitamin-enriched to combat two widespread diseases among blacks whose staple diet is primarily based on the product.
1989 J. Hobbs Thoughts in Makeshift Mortuary 263Mealie meal is the staple food of Southern Africa, cooked with water in a three-legged pot over an open fire to make the stiff crumbly porridge called phuthu. It is eaten with the fingers, unaccompanied if the family is poor, but preferably with a spicy meat and vegetable sauce.
2. In full mealie-meal pap [partial translation of Afrikaans mieliemeelpap, mielie maize + meel meal + pap porridge], mealie-meal porridge: mealiepap sense 1.
1880 E.F. Sandeman Eight Months in Ox-Waggon 20I was able to walk from sunrise to sunset,..often with no more strengthening food to work on than mealie-meal pap.
1882 S. Heckford Lady Trader in Tvl 178Mr Higgins told me..that I could feed my Kaffirs on nothing but mealea meal.
1899 D.S.F.A. Phillips S. Afr. Recollections 148The food..consisted of a tin pannikin of mealie meal pap (porridge), at six in the morning..[etc.].
1925 L.P. Greene Adventure Omnibus 471The beer brewed by the women grows stale, and mealie meal — three times a day, look you — is no proper food for a man.
1951 S. van H. Tulleken Prac. Cookery Bk 4Mealie Meal. 4 cups boiling water, ½ teaspon salt, 3 heaping spoons of mealie meal.
1961 T. Matshikiza Choc. for my Wife 101A four gallon paraffin tin loaded with mealie meal, a porridge of crushed corn.
1966 L.G. Berger Where’s Madam 79Add a gigantic pot of mealie meal porridge..as a side dish.
1968 J.T. McNish Rd to El Dorado 236After a hasty breakfast of mealiemeal and coffee he went off to his claim with his boys.
1976 J. Becker Virgins (1986) 13Left-overs of hard-cooked mealie-meal scraped from the bottom of the servants’ lunch-pot.
1976 J. McClure Rogue Eagle 150The old devil came to be treated for damages his wives had inflicted with hot mealie meal!
1985 Financial Mail 18 Oct. (Fedics Suppl.) 40You still have to consider differences in ethnic tastebuds. I would not serve salt in a Sotho’s mealie-meal because that’s like putting a curse on him.
1987 R. Hyde in Flying Springbok Aug. 29Even in Paris, capital of gourmet refinement, steamed yellow mealie-meal from South Africa is the latest taste sensation.
Maize meal, white or yellow in colour and either coarsely- or finely ground. Also attributive.
In full mealie-meal pap [partial translation of Afrikaans mieliemeelpap, mielie maize + meel meal + pap porridge], mealie-meal porridge: mealiepap sense 1.
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mealie, nounn.mealiepap, nounn.
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