To make mămăligă, a cook boils water in a deep copper or iron pot, then slowly pours in fine yellow cornflour while stirring hard with a wooden stick. As it cooks, the mixture thickens and turns the colour of sunshine. After about half an hour of stirring, it is ready.
If you let it cool a little, it sets like a soft loaf and you can cut it with a piece of string or a knife. If you serve it soft, you scoop it onto a plate next to whatever else you are eating. It is the perfect partner for sarmale, stews, fried eggs, cheese, sour cream, and almost anything you'd serve with bread or rice.
Mămăligă has been the everyday food of Romanian villages for hundreds of years. In the past, families would eat it almost every day. Today many city families have it once a week or for a special meal - the way some families have a Sunday roast.
Like ugali in Kenya or polenta in Italy, mămăligă is a 'staple' food - something simple that gives you energy and fills you up, and that the side dishes can change around. A bowl of mămăligă with a fried egg on top and a spoon of cottage cheese alongside is many Romanian children's favourite breakfast.