Mămăligă is Romania's cornmeal polenta, cooked thick with water and salt until it firms enough to slice with a string. It arrives under brânză, smântână, fried egg and slănină, or alongside ciorbă and sarmale.

Mămăligă entered Romanian cooking when maize arrived from the Americas via Ottoman trade routes in the 17th century, displacing earlier millet porridge. Through the 18th and 19th centuries it became the peasant staple and the rural breakfast, named the national bread by the writers of the 1848 generation. The modern Bucharest restaurant version uses fine cornmeal cooked stiff, sliced with a thread, and served as a side or a centrepiece under cheese and sour cream.

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