In South Africa, good food can be found everywhere, both in restaurants and private homes. At the core of everyone’s diet, white and colored alike, are meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit, which the region produces abundantly and of excellent quality. Each ethnicity naturally adds exotic touches, for example, in sauces, spices, various seasonings, or cooking techniques.
What to Eat in South Africa: Typical Dishes
A must in South African meat cuisine is grilled preparations: the braai, as barbecue is called, is everywhere. A good braai always includes spiced sausages, recalling German heritage, and various cuts of meat, ranging from big steaks to spiced ribs. When the colder season arrives, barbecues give way to fragrant stews, based on beef or veal but also on lamb, such as waterblommetjie breedie, where lamb and mutton meat is slow-braised with the buds of an aquatic plant that grows only in the water bodies of the Western Cape.
In a country so rich in wildlife, game cannot be missing from the tables and is generally highly appreciated by tourists as well: antelope, kudu, crocodile, or warthog are considered authentic delicacies.
Another important chapter is fish, abundantly supplied by the two oceans in all varieties, from shellfish to the lively Cape salmon, up to the snoek, South Africa’s quintessential fish, prepared smoked, roasted, grilled, and even dried. There are many ethnic dishes whose names also appear on restaurant menus.
The Chakalaka, for example, is a vegetable salad with chili sauce, of Malay origin, served with meat and pap, a kind of white polenta made from local maize. The Bobotie, a typical dish of the Malay community, consists of minced and spiced meat topped with an egg-based custard and baked. The Achaar is a very spicy Indian-origin pickled vegetable salad.
Mala are boiled and then fried intestines, a typical African delicacy; while Frikkadel, slightly spiced meatballs, are a Dutch heritage. Finally, wines, a pride of South Africa, thanks to the rich soil and the Mediterranean climate of the Cape, with hot summers and rainy winters.
