Lesotho

Staples

• Papa (dense, stiff-cooked white maize porridge)
• Mabele (whole-grain mountain sorghum used for porridges and brewing)
• Likhobe (boiled field maize kernels cooked with dry sugar beans)
• Bohobe ba mouoane (steamed wheat-flour and sorghum hearth bread)
• Moroho oa thepe (wild gathered amaranth leaves and brassica greens)

Seasonings

• Mafura a khomo (clarified beef tallow used for sautéing and enriching greens)
• Mafi (thick, sour-fermented curdled milk used as a tart dressing)
• Tomoso (wild lacto-fermented sorghum starter paste for souring porridges)
• Pelepele (sun-dried ground bird's-eye chili flakes)
• Letsoai la tlhaho (coarse native rock salt)

Techniques

• Fermenting sorghum slurs to create sour ting
• Steam-baking dumpling breads in covered cast-iron pots
• Slow braising tough meats in three-legged potjies
• Sun-drying foraged wild greens for winter storage

At the table

Meals are traditionally prepared by women over wood fires or gas rings, arranged as a generous hillock of stiff papa bordered by salted moroho greens and a rich bone-in mutton or beef trotters stew. While lowland households frequently supplement meals with fresh summer cabbages and mafi curd, high-altitude Maloti mountain communities rely extensively on dried preserved leaves and energy-dense likhobe to survive harsh sub-zero winters.