With a cuisine that’s heavily influenced by a mish-mash of exotic flavours, both indigenous and colonial, South Africa has a lot on its platter…literally!
By Raul Dias
From the Dutch-influenced, meaty excesses of a typically Afrikaner braai grill-a-thon to the ingenious underpinnings of the decidedly Indian bunny chow and a whole lot more in between—including vigorous nods to the Far East—the cuisine of South Africa is a true reflection of the country’s ‘Rainbow Nation’ epithet. All this, with plenty of exotic tastes—both indigenous and colonial—thrown in for good measure.
Thrill of the Grill
Loathe to call itself a barbecue (which is a mere sauce condiment in South Africa), a traditional braai is a garden grill out that’s hosted by almost every family in the country come summer. Adapted by the former Dutch colonialists, the Afrikaners, from the ancient technique of grilling and roasting freshly hunted meat by the country’s indigenous Khoisan people, a braai is all about generously cut beef steaks basted with the fruity monkeygland sauce along with juicy pork ribs, lamb chops and sausages, among other callously carnivorous offerings.
With its own set of rules, a braai might seem like an outdated, misogynistic ritual where the grilling of meats on the braai (as the actual coal-lit grill is called) is the domain of the man of the house, while the women take care of the side dishes and desserts. And not to mention anathema for most vegetarians, with the odd salad and dainty cheese-tomato-onion grilled sandwiches called braai broodtjies thrown in as a sort of feeble ‘peace offering’, as it were.
Known multifariously as pap, phutu or mieliepap, and providing the roughage to the braai spread, pap is a hearty, traditional African porridge-meets-polenta-like dish. Made from coarse corn meal boiled in hot water with butter and salt, it is often served with a sweetish, relish-like sauce called chakalaka made with tomato and onion, with bacon, cheese and corn kernels added to provide some additional heft to it. In some parts of South Africa, particularly among the Sotho-Tswana people, it is simply known as ting and their version is a sorghum-based pap that’s got a tangy hit to it thanks to it being fermented for two days before serving.
No braai can ever be complete without a couple of lamb sosaties thrown onto the grill. Similar to kababs or shashliks, sosaties are cubes of meat alternated by a dried apricot and a strip of bacon, all fastened onto tiny wooden skewers with a generous sprinkling of curry powder and turmeric in their mXarinade giving them a nice Indian zing.
Colonial Connections
Speaking of India, the city of Durban in South Africa’s Eastern KwaZulu-Natal province is not just home to the country’s largest number of people of Indian origin, but also for the fiendishly popular dish called bunny chow. An ingenious 19th Century invention of the indentured Indian sugarcane field workers, who found a canny way of carrying their lunch curries to work in hollowed out loaves of breads without spilling them, bunny chow today sees many iterations. With unctuous curries of meat, chicken, beans and vegetables all ensconced in fluffy loaves of white bread. And it is this quarter loaf of bread that has also resulted in bunny chow’s more colloquial moniker of kota (quarter) as Durbanites call their favourite any-time snack.
Also doing well to reference South Africa’s Indian connection is the roasted coriander, black pepper, nutmeg and cloves spice blend that goes into the coiled beef-lamb-pork boerewors sausages that have originated from the traditional (and less spicy) Dutch verse worst sausages. A dried version of boerewors called droëwors are popular South African game time snacks to munch on.
Another immigrant group that has greatly influenced the South African palate are the Cape Malay people of Cape Town who came from Indonesia along with the Dutch East India Company. With its fluffy, savoury egg custard top and its raisin-cinnamon-curry powder spiked minced lamb base, the Cape Malay baked dish bobotie is based on the traditional Indonesian bobotok which is a steamed dish of minced fish and coconut milk.
A delicious relic of South Africa’s Cape Dutch lineage from the country’s Western Cape region, malva pudding with its perfectly moist with a gooey center is always drenched in vanilla custard and served warm. Another dessert favourite is the cinnamon- and nutmeg-dusted, fried doughnut-like twisted Afrikaner-Cape Malay pastry called koeksisters. A great way to punctuate a typically South African feast that’s truly from here, there and everywhere!
(A shorter, differently edited version of this article appeared in the 8th September 2018 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India on page 10 https://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/v2domOLNFSajuEmS4YQzXL/Cape-of-feasts.html)
By Raul Dias
From the Dutch-influenced, meaty excesses of a typically Afrikaner braai grill-a-thon to the ingenious underpinnings of the decidedly Indian bunny chow and a whole lot more in between—including vigorous nods to the Far East—the cuisine of South Africa is a true reflection of the country’s ‘Rainbow Nation’ epithet. All this, with plenty of exotic tastes—both indigenous and colonial—thrown in for good measure.
Thrill of the Grill
Loathe to call itself a barbecue (which is a mere sauce condiment in South Africa), a traditional braai is a garden grill out that’s hosted by almost every family in the country come summer. Adapted by the former Dutch colonialists, the Afrikaners, from the ancient technique of grilling and roasting freshly hunted meat by the country’s indigenous Khoisan people, a braai is all about generously cut beef steaks basted with the fruity monkeygland sauce along with juicy pork ribs, lamb chops and sausages, among other callously carnivorous offerings.
With its own set of rules, a braai might seem like an outdated, misogynistic ritual where the grilling of meats on the braai (as the actual coal-lit grill is called) is the domain of the man of the house, while the women take care of the side dishes and desserts. And not to mention anathema for most vegetarians, with the odd salad and dainty cheese-tomato-onion grilled sandwiches called braai broodtjies thrown in as a sort of feeble ‘peace offering’, as it were.
Known multifariously as pap, phutu or mieliepap, and providing the roughage to the braai spread, pap is a hearty, traditional African porridge-meets-polenta-like dish. Made from coarse corn meal boiled in hot water with butter and salt, it is often served with a sweetish, relish-like sauce called chakalaka made with tomato and onion, with bacon, cheese and corn kernels added to provide some additional heft to it. In some parts of South Africa, particularly among the Sotho-Tswana people, it is simply known as ting and their version is a sorghum-based pap that’s got a tangy hit to it thanks to it being fermented for two days before serving.
No braai can ever be complete without a couple of lamb sosaties thrown onto the grill. Similar to kababs or shashliks, sosaties are cubes of meat alternated by a dried apricot and a strip of bacon, all fastened onto tiny wooden skewers with a generous sprinkling of curry powder and turmeric in their mXarinade giving them a nice Indian zing.
Colonial Connections
Speaking of India, the city of Durban in South Africa’s Eastern KwaZulu-Natal province is not just home to the country’s largest number of people of Indian origin, but also for the fiendishly popular dish called bunny chow. An ingenious 19th Century invention of the indentured Indian sugarcane field workers, who found a canny way of carrying their lunch curries to work in hollowed out loaves of breads without spilling them, bunny chow today sees many iterations. With unctuous curries of meat, chicken, beans and vegetables all ensconced in fluffy loaves of white bread. And it is this quarter loaf of bread that has also resulted in bunny chow’s more colloquial moniker of kota (quarter) as Durbanites call their favourite any-time snack.
Also doing well to reference South Africa’s Indian connection is the roasted coriander, black pepper, nutmeg and cloves spice blend that goes into the coiled beef-lamb-pork boerewors sausages that have originated from the traditional (and less spicy) Dutch verse worst sausages. A dried version of boerewors called droëwors are popular South African game time snacks to munch on.
Another immigrant group that has greatly influenced the South African palate are the Cape Malay people of Cape Town who came from Indonesia along with the Dutch East India Company. With its fluffy, savoury egg custard top and its raisin-cinnamon-curry powder spiked minced lamb base, the Cape Malay baked dish bobotie is based on the traditional Indonesian bobotok which is a steamed dish of minced fish and coconut milk.
A delicious relic of South Africa’s Cape Dutch lineage from the country’s Western Cape region, malva pudding with its perfectly moist with a gooey center is always drenched in vanilla custard and served warm. Another dessert favourite is the cinnamon- and nutmeg-dusted, fried doughnut-like twisted Afrikaner-Cape Malay pastry called koeksisters. A great way to punctuate a typically South African feast that’s truly from here, there and everywhere!
(A shorter, differently edited version of this article appeared in the 8th September 2018 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India on page 10 https://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/v2domOLNFSajuEmS4YQzXL/Cape-of-feasts.html)
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