Cuisine of South Africa

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The Cuisine of South Africa varies widely, representing the food of indigenous people and of all those who have immigrated since the seventeenth century.

Modern South African cookery is influenced by two primary cultural strands:

Cookery practised by indigenous people of South Africa such as the Khoisan and Xhosa- and Sotho-speaking people
Settler cookery introduced during the colonial period by people of Afrikaner and British descent and their slaves and servants - this includes the cuisine of the Cape Malay people, which has many characteristics of Malaysia and Java, and recipes from neighbouring colonial cultures such as Portuguese Mozambique.

Contents

1 Indigenous cookery

1.1 Decline of indigenous cookery

2 Settler cookery

2.1 Cape Dutch
2.2 Indian cookery

3 Restaurants and fast food outlets
4 Typical South African foods and dishes
5 References
6 External links

Indigenous cookery

In the precolonial period indigenous cuisine was characterised by the use of a very wide range of fruits, nuts, bulbs, leaves and other products gathered from wild plants and by the hunting of wild game. The domestication of cattle in the region about two thousand years ago by Khoisan groups enabled the use of milk products and the availability of fresh meat on demand. However, during the colonial period the seizure of communal land in South Africa helped to restrict and discourage traditional agriculture and wild harvesting, and reduced the extent of land available to black people.

Decline of indigenous cookery

Urbanisation from the nineteenth century onward, coupled with close control over agricultural production, led black South Africans to rely more and more on comparatively expensive, industrially-processed foodstuffs like wheat flour, white rice, mealie (maize) meal and sugar. Often these foods were imported or processed by white wholesalers, mills and factories. The consequence was to drastically restrict the range of ingredients and cooking styles used by indigenous cooks.

Settler cookery

South Africa was settled from the seventeenth century onwards by colonists from the Netherlands, Germany and France, and later by arrivals from the British Isles. These colonists brought European cookery styles with them.

Cape Dutch

Traditional cookery of South Africa is often referred to as "Cape Dutch"; this cuisine is characterised by the use of spices such as nutmeg, allspice and hot peppers. The Cape Dutch cookery style owes at least as much to the cookery of the slaves brought by the Dutch East India Company to the Cape from Bengal, Java and Malaysia as it does to the European styles of cookery imported by settlers, and this is reflected in the use of eastern spices and the names given to many of these dishes.

Indian cookery

Curry dishes are popular in South Africa among people of all ethnic origins; many dishes came to the country with the thousands of Indian labourers brought to South Africa in the nineteenth century.

Restaurants and fast food outlets

South Africa can be said to have a real "eating out" culture. While there are some restaurants that specialize in traditional South African dishes or modern interpretations thereof, restaurants featuring other cuisines such as Moroccan, Chinese, West African, Congolese and Japanese can be found in all of the major cities and many of the larger towns. In addition, there are also a large number of home-grown chain restaurants, such as Spur and Mugg & Bean.

There is also a proliferation of fast food restaurants in South Africa. While there are some international players such as McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken active in the country, they face stiff competition from local chains such as Nando's and Steers.

Many of the restaurant chains originating from South-Africa have also expanded successfully outside the borders of the country.

Typical South African foods and dishes

Biltong, a salty dried meat (similar to jerky)
Bobotie, a dish of Malay descent, is like meatloaf with raisins and with baked egg on top, and is often served with yellow rice, sambals, coconut, banana slices, and chutney
Boerewors, a sausage that is traditionally braaied (barbequed)
Bunny chow, curry stuffed into a hollowed-out loaf of bread
Chutney, a sweet sauce made from fruit that is usually poured on meat, especially a local brand called Mrs Ball's Chutney
Frikkadelle - meatballs
Gesmoorde vis, salted cod with potatoes and tomatoes and sometimes served with apricot jam
Hoenderpastei, chicken pie, traditional Afrikaans fare
Isidudu, pumpkin pap
Koeksusters come in two forms and are a sweet delicacy. Afrikaans koeksusters are twisted pastries, deep fried and heavily sweetened. Koeksusters found on the Cape Flats are sweet and spicy, shaped like large eggs, and deep-fried
Malva Pudding, a sweet spongy Apricot pudding of Dutch origin.
Mashonzha, made from the mopane worm
Melktert (milk tart), a milk-based dessert
Mealie-bread, a sweet bread baked with sweetcorn
Mielie-meal, one of the staple foods, often used in baking but predominately cooked into pap, or phutu, a traditional Bantu porridge which is usually eaten with beans, gravy, or meat
Ostrich is an increasingly popular protein source as it has a low cholesterol content; it is either used in a stew or filleted and grilled
Pampoenkoekies (pumpkin flapjacks), patatrolle (sweet potato rolls) and a further variety of baked goods where flour has been supplemented with or replaced by pumpkin or sweet potato
Potbrood (pot bread), savoury bread baked over coals in cast-iron pots
Potjiekos, a traditional Afrikaans stew made with meat and vegetables and cooked over coals in cast-iron pots
Rusks, a rectangular, hard, dry biscuit eaten after being dunked in tea or coffee; they are either home-baked or shop-bought (with the most popular brand being Ouma Rusks)
Samosa or samoosa, a savoury stuffed Indian pastry that is fried
Sosaties, grilled marinated meat on a skewer
Tomato bredie, a lamb and tomato stew
Trotters and Beans, from the Cape, made from boiled pig's or sheep's trotters and onions and beans
Umngqusho, a dish made from semolina and black-eyed peas
Vetkoek (fat cake), deep-fried dough balls, typically stuffed with meat or served with jam
Waterblommetjie bredie (water flower stew), meat stewed with the flower of the Cape Pondweed

References

Coetzee, Renata, 1977. The South African Culinary Tradition, C. Struik Publishers, Cape Town, South Africa.
Leipoldt, C. Louis, 1976. Leipoldt’s Cape Cookery, Fleesch and Partners, Cape Town, South Africa.
Van Wyk, B. and Gericke, N., 2000. People's plants: A guide to useful plants of Southern Africa, Briza, Pretoria, South Africa.
Wylie, D., 2001. Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA., United States of America.
[Routledge Encyclopaedia of Africa - Farming]

External links

[South African cuisine - International Marketing Council of South Africa web site]

Cuisine of Africa

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