At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Dutch settlers in what is now South Africa borrowed the Portuguese word milje\u2014meaning millet, a kind of grain\u2014and from it formed the word mielie, which they first bestowed upon the grain known in North America as corn and later bestowed upon a cake made from this corn. Eventually, because the grain and cake now had the same name\u2014mielie\u2014the cornmeal required to make the cake became known as mielie-mielie, literally meaning corn for corn cake. This word was respelt as mealie-mealie in the middle of the nineteenth century. Mieli also was combined with the word pap, meaning gruel, to form mielipap, a corn porridge that became a staple in the diet of millions of impoverished South Africans.<\/p>\n
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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Dutch settlers in what is now South Africa borrowed the Portuguese word milje\u2014meaning millet, a kind of grain\u2014and from it formed the word mielie, which they first bestowed upon the grain known in North America as corn and later bestowed upon a cake made from this corn. Eventually, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-m"],"yoast_head":"\n