National Dish of the Week - South Africa

Potjiekos, .

South Africa

The cuisine of South Africa is sometimes called "rainbow cuisine", as it has had a variety of multicultural sources and stages. The cuisine can be generalized as:

    * Cookery practiced by indigenous people of South Africa such as the Khoisan and Xhosa, Zulu- and Sotho-speaking people
    * Settler cookery that emerged from several waves of immigration introduced during the colonial period by people of Indian and 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 neighboring colonial cultures such as Portuguese Mozambique.

In the precolonial period, indigenous cuisine was characterized by the use of a very wide range of foods including fruits, nuts, bulbs, leaves and other products gathered from wild plants and by the hunting of wild game. The introduction of domestic cattle and grain crops by Bantu speakers who arrived in the region about two thousand years ago and the spread of cattle keeping to Khoisan groups enabled the use of milk products and the availability of fresh meat on demand. The pre-colonial diet consisted primarily of cooked grains, especially sorghum, fermented milk (somewhat like yogurt) and roasted or stewed meat. At some point, maize replaced sorghum as the primary grain, and there is some dispute as to whether maize, a North American crop arrived with European settlers or spread through Africa before white settlement via Africans returning from the Americas during the era of the slave trade. However, during the colonial period, the seizure of communal land in South Africa restricted and discouraged traditional agriculture and wild harvesting, and reduced the extent of land available to black people. Men also kept sheep and goats, and communities often organized vast hunts for the abundant game; but beef was considered the absolutely most important and high status meat. The ribs of any cattle that were slaughtered in many communities were so prized that they were offered to the chief of the village.

In many ways, the daily food of Black South African families can be traced to the indigenous foods that their ancestors ate. A typical meal in a Black South African family household that is Bantu-speaking is a stiff, fluffy porridge of maize meal (called "pap," and very similar to American grits) with a flavorful stewed meat gravy. Traditional rural families (and many urban ones) often ferment their pap for a few days — especially if it is sorghum instead of maize — which gives it a tangy flavor. The Sotho-Tswana call this fermented pap, "ting."

The vegetable is often some sort of pumpkin, varieties of which are indigenous to South Africa, although now many people eat pumpkins that originated in other countries. Beans and rice are also very popular even though they are not indigenous. Another common vegetable dish, which arrived in South Africa with its many Irish immigrants, but which has been adopted by black South Africans, is shredded cabbage and white potatoes cooked with butter.

Urbanization 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. Before the arrival of crops from the Americas, pap was mostly made from sorghum, but maize is much more prevalent today. 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.

On the other hand, some imported food plants (maize, tomatoes) have expanded the dietary range of indigenous cooks. Of these maize is the most significant - it has been integrated to such an extent into the traditional diet that it is often assumed to be an indigenous plant.

Popular foods in modern South Africa are chicken, limes, garlic, ginger, chili, tomatoes, onions and many spices.

South Africa was settled from the seventeenth century onwards by colonists from Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. These colonists brought European cookery styles with them. The Afrikaners have their succulent potjiekos, tamatiebredie (tomato bredie) or stews of lamb or mutton with tomato and onion sauce, with or without rice. There are many European contributions like Dutch fried crueler or koeksister, Malva Pudding and melktert (milk tart). French Hugenots brought wines as well as their traditional recipes.

During the pioneering days of the 17th century, new foods such as biltong, droë wors (dried sausage) and rusks evolved locally out of necessity.

A very distinctive regional style of South African cooking is often referred to as "Cape Dutch". This cuisine is characterized 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. The Cape Malay influence has brought spicy curries, sambals, pickled fish, and variety of fish stews.

The mixing of Dutch settlers and their African (mostly Khoisan) servants in the kitchens of the Cape over food was a major factor in the development of Afrikaans culture, so much so, that the original words for the Afrikaans language, a simplified patois developed for communication between "masters" and "servants" compared to the "high Dutch" spoken by people born in the Netherlands, was "kombuis taal," literally "kitchen talk" or "kitchen language."

Bobotie is an of a South African dish that has Cape Malay origins. It consists of spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping. Of the many dishes common to South Africa, bobotie is perhaps closest to being the national dish, because it isn't made in any other country. The recipe originates from the Dutch East India Company colonies in Batavia, with the name derived from the Indonesian bobotok. It is also made with curry powder leaving it with a slight "tang". It is often served with sambal, a hint of its origins from the Malay Archipelago.

Curried dishes are popular with lemon juice 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. The Indians have introduced a different line of culinary practices, including a variety of sweets, chutneys, fried snacks such as samosa and other savory foods. Bunny chow is a dish from Durban, where there is a large Indian community, that been adapted into mainstream South African cuisine and has become quite popular.

South Africa can be said to have a significant "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 Dulce Cafe.

There is also a proliferation of fast food restaurants in South Africa. While there are some international players such as McDonald's 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.