Roasted Maize

1. 1A whole maize cob cooked in its kernels, not stripped
2. 2Roasted directly over open coals or a brazier — char and smoke are essential
3. 3Eaten out of hand, on the cob
4. 4A roadside / street snack rather than a plated dish
5. 5Made from field maize, often starchier than sweetcorn

Open-coal roasting

Direct fire chars the kernels and imparts the smoky flavour that defines roasted maize, distinct from boiled mealies

Served

On the cob, eaten by hand

Temperature

hot

Portion

one cob per person

Pairs with

Salt · Eaten on its own

• Field maize → Sweetcornadmissible

  Sweetcorn roasts well though it is sweeter and softer than traditional field maize

• Open-coal roasting → Boilinginadmissible

  Boiling produces boiled mealies, an entirely different dish — the char and smoke are what make it roasted maize

• Boiling instead of roasting, losing the smoky char
• Using only sweetcorn when the traditional version uses starchier field maize
• Burning the cob to ash rather than charring the kernels

A shared Southern African roadside snack of fire-roasted maize cobs, ubiquitous across Eswatini, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Shared by: Eswatini, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho

1. 1.Southern African street-food tradition

Confidence: high