(Jewish Group) Why This Classic Romanian-Jewish Dish Is Nearly Impossible to Find

When said aloud, the word sounds almost like music: Mamaliga. An almost-facsimile of polenta, the cornmeal-based dish mamaliga is native to Romania and neighboring Moldova, as well as parts of the Ukraine. Written as mamelige in Yiddish, and mămăligă in Romanian, the dish inspires an almost romantic yearning, particularly among Ashkenazi and Romanian Jews. In his famous song “Rumania, Rumania” originally recorded in 1925, Yiddish theater actor and singer Aaron Lebedeff extols the delights of the eponymous land through its comestibles: “Vos dos harts glust kenstu krign: A mamaligele, a pastramele, a karnatsele, Un a glezele vayn, aha…!” (In English: “What your heart desires you can get; a mamalige, a pastrami, a karnatzl, and a glass of wine, aha…!”)

Mamaliga is, in its most basic form, quite simple: coarsely-ground yellow cornmeal—the same kind used for polenta—cooked with water and salt over a low heat. It takes about half an hour to cook, stirring constantly, says Roza Jaffe, a home cook and Holocaust survivor from the region of Bessarabia, which today straddles Moldova and the Ukraine. (I personally spent upwards of an hour standing over my Dutch oven in both of my attempts to make it, though I am a notoriously slow cook).

In her 1994 cookbook, Jewish Cooking in America, Joan Nathan writes that “corn was brought to the Old World after the discovery of America, but it only took hold in Romania and parts of Italy.” However, Ashkenazi Jewish foodways scholar Eve Jochnowitz noted that mamaliga technically originated in the region of Bukovina which, while a part of pre-World War II Romania, is now in Ukraine. And yet, the dish remains firmly rooted in Jewish foodways. In her recipe headnote, Nathan quotes Florence Naumoff, a home cook with whom she exchanged a number of letters: “‘My mother used to use the expression, ‘Es [m]amaliga licht in punem,’ literally “when you eat Mamaliga it shows in your face,’ when she met someone who looked Jewish.’” The dish is also commonly served during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, as Nathan notes in a 2020 Tablet article.

Served simply, mamaliga may be adorned with butter, sour cream, and even a bit of salty Romanian bryndza cheese (often swapped out for feta in the U.S.). Or, it can be turned into something show stopping and rich, like the Romanian dish mămăligă în pături: a lasagna-like concoction layered with butter, cheeses, eggs, and sometimes—in a treyf, or unkosher, rendition—meat. Mamaliga can even be sliced and pan-fried, much like polenta.

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