Food Trotter

World Cup fever will take the world by storm in the next few days. Hosted for the first time on the African continent, soccer fans (ahem, football fans) from around the world will descend into South Africa for a showdown of ball kicking glory. As such, this is the perfect opportunity to explore the host country’s South African cuisine. So hold on tightly to your sacks, we’re going to bend it like Beckham and introduce South African food as best we can. Hopefully it won’t backfire like Aldous Snow’s African Child album in “Get Him to the Greek” (his other songs are surprisingly awesome, think Furry Walls!).

As the first time Africa has ever hosted something of this magnitude, not only is this hugely symbolic for a continent hindered by war, famine, and poverty, but it will mark the beginning of an overwhelmingly bright future. With so much media coverage, it’s a shame that we (possibly just me?) don’t know more about South African cuisine, let alone African cuisine. With its famous wines, there HAS to be a vast array of South African food to accompany the booze. Interestingly, I discovered that South African cuisine is often referred to as “rainbow cuisine”, named rightly so for its kaleidoscope of cultural influences directly from historical colonialism and present-day globalization. Most notable influences stem from colonial powers of the Portuguese, Dutch, Germans, French and English. Slaves from Bengal, Java, and Malaysia also impacted South African cuisine, largely in the form of eastern spices such as curries and sambal.

Traditionally, indigenous cooking consisted mainly of foods harvested from the land and a typical maize-styled porridge called mealie pap and dried strips of salted meat called biltong. Meat is often the cornerstone of the meal, where sausage-like boerewors are enjoyed over a favorite South African pastime of barbequing, called braaivleis, which features such delicious meats as ostrich, lamb, and African game such as impala and warthog! Apparently the herbs and grasses of which these animals graze provide a sweet and aromatic taste that is favored by the locals. You’ll also find an array of Malay-fused curries such as bobotie, a curried meatloaf pie, and Bengal-styled breyanis, known infamously as biryani in other parts of the globe. Other tasty bites of significance include bredie, a lamb stew also known as water-lily stew, and a roti-like imposter known as bunny chow, a loaf of bread whose innards are removed to serve as a hollowed-out receptacle for various curries.

My research on South African has revealed my misunderstandings of a continent whose capacity remains largely undiscovered. As the World Cup tournament can last for up to four weeks, fans indulging on artery clogging foods won’t go unnoticed, as emergency crews reportedly attend to a significant increase in heart attacks during the games. As heart-stopping as the games are (figuratively speaking of course), I recommend that we take this rare opportunity to sample the array of foods that the host country has to offer, anything otherwise would be a shame on such a momentous occasion.

PS: Looking to sample some South African food? Look no further, have a taste of braaivleis (bbq) at your local Nando’s establishment, a restaurant chain originating from South Africa. Famous for its flame-grilled chicken, Nando’s is a great alternative to our accustomed Swiss Chalet here in Canada. Perhaps most unique is the Peri Peri sauce which accompanies the chicken, made from the African Bird’s Eye Chili which was introduced to Portuguese colonists a long time ago.