Lõuna Aafrika rahvusköök (1)

Cuisine of South Africa has had a variety of sources and stages:

• 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 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 neighbouring colonial cultures such as Portuguese Mozambique.
  

Indigenous cookery

traditional South African cuisine
In the precolonial period, indigenous cuisine was characterized 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 . 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.

Decline of indigenous cookery

Urbanization from the nineteenth century , 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. 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.

Settler cookery

South Africa was settled from the seventeenth century 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 refered 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.

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 Dulce Cafe.
There is also a proliferation of fast food restaurants. While there are some international players such as McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken active in the country, they have 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.

South African wine

There are vineyards all over Africa. Algeria and Morocco have been producing wines for decades and modern wine- making has been set up in places like Zimbabwe and Kenya .
But it is down south in the Cape, where climactic and topographic conditions simulate those of the old wine countries, that the continent 's finest wines are produced. Today the best of South African wine is up there with the rest , while in the " easy - drinking " category no one beats us.
History has a way with wine and the Cape's wine culture, which goes back 350 years, is one that reflects the country's sad colonial and apartheid past, but also shines with the potential and expectation of the modern wine world.
From that long history comes a wine tradition of tastes and styles with its roots in the classic "Old World" of France, Germany and Italy , but also an acute awareness of the contemporary consumer , as has been defined by wine-making in the "New World" of California and Australia .
It has often been said that South African wine is in the unique position of both those wonderful worlds. It offers marketing possibilities that can be harnessed for the challenges of the new global economy . It can offer the wine-drinking world all kinds of new flavour experiences. It can also show the way to handle such sensitive issues as labour relations in the reality of the beautiful Cape winelands.
Wine for the modern market
In the post-apartheid era since 1994, South African wine has returned to the world with significant impact, growing from some 50-million litres exported that year to topping 139-million in 2000, representing more than 25% of good wine production.
It is still increasing, and Cape wine is reaching even more consumers in more countries. According to the latest figures from the generic exporter association Wosa, or Wines of South Africa, international sales for 2001 increased 17.8% compared with 2000, despite the global recession.
Internationally, the industry is small, ranking 16th with about 1.5% of global plantings, but production, at seventh position, accounts for 3% of the world's wine.
As in most established wine-producing countries, new plantings are taking place at a pace and new varieties of wine grapes as well as new regions are being explored as the country finds itself at the frontline of modern market requirements.
Of the 105 566 hectares under wine grapevines (compared with 98 203 hectares in 1997), according to the latest official statistics, 21.38% is chenin blanc - by far still the country's most widely planted variety. Sultana (11.28%), a grape that is also used for non- alcohol purposes, is next, followed by colombard and chardonnay .
Cabernet sauvignon comprises the majority of red varieties (a mere 8.36% of total vineyard plantings) in present vineyards, followed by pinotage and shiraz .
White varieties still represent more than two-thirds of the total, but this has moved from an imbalance of 15% red and 85% white in 1990. In 2000 more than 80% of all new plantings were red, with shiraz, cabernet and merlot at the top of the list. At the same time, 87% of all vines uprooted were white, mostly chenin blanc, white French and colombard.
There is a shift from chardonnay to sauvignon blanc, a varietal which lends itself to a larger range of styles and quality levels.
All in all, in the year up to the end of 2000, 6 042.7 hectares of new vines were planted.
In 2000 the total grape crop was about 1-million tons, from which 830-million litres of wine were made by 355 active cellars, of which 185 were non- estate "private producers ", 92 registered "estates", 69 co-operatives and nine producing wholesalers

South African cuisine

For the more daring diner, South Africa offers culinary challenges from crocodile sirloins to fried caterpillars to sheep heads. All three are reputed to be delicious. For the not- quite so brave, there are myriad indigenous delicacies such as biltong (dried, salted meat), bobotie (a much- improved version of Shepherd's pie) and boerewors (hand-made farm sausages, grilled on an open flame).
Those who prefer to play it altogether safe will find that most eateries offer a familiar global menu - anything from hamburgers to sushi to pad thai to spaghetti bolognaise. And you can drink the water.
On a single street in a Johannesburg suburb, one finds Italian restaurants, two or three varieties of Chinese cookery, Japanese, Moroccan, French, Portuguese and Indian food, both Tandoor and Gujarati. Not far away are Congolese restaurants, Greek , even Brazilian and Korean establishments, and, everywhere , fusion , displaying the fantasies of creative chefs.
It's not much different in the other major centres , such as Cape Town or Durban. Restaurant guides that categorise eateries by national style list close to two dozen, including Vietnamese and Swiss .
Those in search of authentic South African cuisine have to look harder for those few establishments that specialise in it - like the justly famous Gramadoelas in central Johannesburg, Wandie's Place in Soweto, the Africa Café in central Cape Town or smaller restaurants in that city's Bo-Kaap, in Khayelitsha and Langa.
Or one can watch for glimmers of the real thing . There are varieties of biltong in every café, in big cities and little dorps. Every weekend there wafts from neighbourhoods rich and poor the smell of spicy sosaties being grilled over the braai. Steak houses may specialise in flame-grilled aged sirloin, but they also offer boerewors.
And sometimes, in posh restaurants, there is the occasional fusion dish - not the common merger of east and west, but north and south: marinated ostrich carpaccio at Sage in Pretoria, oxtail ravioli with saffron cream sauce at Bartholomeus Klip in Hermon on the Cape west coast, even Tandoori crocodile at the Pavilion in the Marine hotel in Hermanus.
There is crocodile on the menu and kudu, impala, even warthog at a number of restaurants that offer game. But there won't be seagull , mercifully, or penguin . Both were staple foods for the strandlopers (or beachcombers) - a community of Khoi who lived on the Cape shore - and the Dutch and Portuguese sailors who made landfall there.
It was the search for food that shaped modern South Africa: spices drew the Dutch East India Company to Java in the mid-1600s, and the need for a half -way refreshment stop for its ships rounding the Cape impelled the Company to plant a farm at the tip of Africa. There are sections of Commander Jan van Riebeeck's wild almond hedge still standing in the Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town.
That farm changed the region forever . The Company discovered it was easier to bring in thousands of hapless slaves from Java to work in the fields than to keep trying to entrap the local people, mostly Khoi and San, who seemed singularly unimpressed with the Dutch and their ways . The Malay slaves brought their cuisine, perhaps the best- known of all South African cooking styles.
The French Huguenots arrived soon after the Dutch, and changed the landscape in wonderful ways with the vines they imported. They soon discovered a need for men and women to work in their vineyards, and turned to the Malay slaves (and the few Khoi and San they could lure into employment ).
Much later, sugar farmers brought indentured labourers from India to cut the cane. The British, looking for gold and empire , also brought their customs and cuisine, as did German immigrants.
And black communities carried on eating their traditional, healthy diet: game, root vegetables and wild greens, berries , millet, sorghum and maize, and protein -rich insects like locusts.
Today the resultant kaleidoscope - the famous "rainbow" - applies not only to the people but to the food, for one finds in South Africa the most extraordinary range of cuisines.

Typical South African foods and dishes

• Amasi, sour milk.
  
• 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 (barbecued).
  
• 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.
  
• Koeksisters come in two forms and are a sweet delicacy. Afrikaans koeksisters are twisted pastries, deep fried and heavily sweetened. Koeksisters found on the Cape Flats are sweet and spicy, shaped like large eggs , and deep-fried.
  
• Mageu, a drink made from fermented mealie pap
  
• Malva Pudding, a sweet spongy Apricot pudding of Dutch origin.
  
• Mashonzha, made from the mopane worm.
  
• Melktert (milk tart ), a milk- based tart or dessert .
  
• Melkkos (milk food), another milk-based dessert.
  
• Mealie-bread, a sweet bread baked with sweetcorn.
  
• Mielie-meal, one of the staple foods, often used in baking but predominantly cooked into pap or phutu.
  
• 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 fritters), 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 African 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.
  
• Smagwinya, fat cakes
  
• Smoked or braai'ed snoek, a regional gamefish.
  
• 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.
  
• Umleqwa, a dish made with free-range chicken.
  
• Umngqusho, a dish made from semolina and black-eyed peas.
  
• Umphokoqo, an African salad made of maize meal
  
• Umqombothi, a type of beer made from fermented wheat.
  
• Umvubo, sour milk mixed with dry pap, commonly eaten by the Xhosa.
  
• 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.
  

Traditional food

South African cuisine is a blend of culinary traditions. Perhaps the best example of indigenous South African cuisine is Pap. Pap is a traditional staple food of Black people, a dish made out of maize, similar to corn meal. This dish is eaten like rice or noodles in other cultures. Pap can be firm or crumbly and can be eaten for breakfast with milk or sour milk and sugar. It is also served with a savoury sauce, or tomato and onion stew and with barbecued or stewed meat or chicken.
A traditional drink of Black people is the Umqombothi. It is a home-brewed sorghum beer that is rich in B vitamins and has a low alcohol content. Because of its nutritional value it is considered a type of food.
Other South African dishes originated in the period of colonization. As settlers moved into mainland South Africa, the ingredients for their usual dishes were not available. This meant they had to adapt their eating habits to their new homes .
The Cape Malays were considered the masters of seasoning. When the Malays arrived in the region, they spiced, curried and often sweetened variations of many European traditional dishes. Fish and shellfish might be grilled, fried, baked or curried. Some of the more exotic Cape dishes consist of venison and fowl . Venison meat is traditionally cooked in wine and served either with rich gravy or stewed preserves.
Putu-Pap or
Crumbly Pap
(Serves 6)
Ingredients
750 ml water
2 tsp. salt
1 kg fine white corn meal, in place of maize meal
Preparation
Bring water to boil. Pour meal into centre of water to form a pile , add salt, but do not stir . Reduce heat by removing from stove. Put lid on and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir with fork or wooden spoon until pap is fine-grained and crumbly. Replace lid and let simmer for 45 minutes until done .

South African restaurant guides

Here 's South Africa's restaurant guides, plus where to go for restaurant and food news, features , recipes and more.
eatout.co.za
southafrica.info/ travel /food/eatout.htm
WINEmag.co.za
trufflepig.co.za
Dining-out.co.za
WhatToEat.co.za
What2night.co.za
Dining.co.za
Restaurants.co.za
Webdining.co.za
food24.com
Showcook.co.za
chaine.co.za/
saca.co.za/
funkymunky.co.za/recipes.html
biltongbox.com/

Used stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_South_Africa
http://www.southafrica.info/travel/food/food.ht m
http://www.cp-pc.ca/english/southafrica/eating.html