In South Africa, the food is good everywhere, both in restaurants and private homes. At the base of the diet of everyone, white and colored, there are meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit, which the territory produces in abundance and of excellent quality. Each ethnicity naturally adds touches of exoticism, 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 are grilled preparations: the braai, as barbecue is called, is found everywhere. A good braai always includes spiced sausages, of Teutonic origin, and various cuts of meat, ranging from thick steaks to spiced ribs. When the colder season arrives, barbecues are set aside in favor of fragrant stews, made with beef or veal, but also lamb, such as waterblommetjie breedie, in which lamb and mutton meat is braised slowly with the shoots 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, generally much appreciated also by tourists: antelope, kudu, crocodile, or warthog are considered true delicacies.
Another important chapter is fish, which the two oceans provide abundantly and in all types, from shellfish to the darting Cape salmon, up to the snoek, the quintessential South African fish, prepared smoked, roasted, grilled, and also dried. 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, covered with an egg-based cream and baked in the oven. The Achaar is a very spicy pickled vegetable salad of Indian origin.
The Mala, are boiled and then fried intestines, a typical African delicacy; while the Frikkadel, slightly spiced meatballs, are a legacy of the Dutch. Finally the wines, pride and joy of South Africa, helped by the richness of the soil and the Mediterranean climate of the Cape, with hot summers and rainy winters.
