Uniquely South African...Food and Drink

Visiting and traveling in a new country always leads us to experimentation in the eating department … sometimes by choice, other times by necessity. South Africa is known as “the rainbow nation” because of its diversity of people and cultures, each contributing to South African cuisine. We had breakfast at a park camp while traveling recently and we were encouraged to have mealie pap for breakfast. It's the most common hot breakfast porridge (cereal) in South Africa. I think we'd call it grits in the USA. Corn meal or flour is called mealie here. It was bland and filling.

Bunny chow is an interesting concoction and famous in Durban if you're into fast, unhealthy foods sold at the local corner store. Take a half loaf of unsliced white bread, dig out the center and fill it with curry (or other things like chips smothered in cheese sauce). Stick the white bread you pulled out of the center on top to resemble a bunny's cottontail and you've got bunny chow. We tried it for lunch one day. Once was enough.

Biltong is dried, salty strips of meat, much like jerky. The usual is beef, but it's available in all sorts of game varieties … kudu, crocodile, ostrich. We saw signs offering biltong most everywhere we traveled.

We're not sausage fans, so when we saw boerewors at the braai at  Shaymoya Lodge, it wasn't an option for me. Add to this the fact that these long sausage are coiled up like intestines or dead snakes and I have to admit, it was not appealing. I'm not feeling guilty about it either.

Ostrich is farmed commercially here in South Africa and available in most grocery stores. It's a lean red meat that tastes fine. You can buy it as steaks or mince (ground). Since I don't eat read meat, but I do eat poultry, it was a quandary. Since ostrich is a big bird, I tried it and liked it and we often have it in place of ground turkey.

Sauces and accompaniments are interesting here in South Africa. Spicy is the key word. Chakalaka is a spicy relish that South Africans like to put on lots of things. When they're not using chakalaka, they pile on the PeriPeri sauce made from African bird's eye chili … think tobasco sauce with more zing. For the more sedate, Mrs. Ball's Chutney is a classic favorite.

In the drinks department, there are some uniquities, too. Rooibos (roy-boss) tea, for instance, is a big seller here. Literally, “red bush”, rooibos is an herbal bush tea made from the leaves of the local Aspalathus linearis plant. I've tried it, but it's not a favorite of mine. Perhaps, it's an acquired taste.

The most popular South African beers are lagers: Castle, Hansa and Carling Black Label. Craft beers and microbreweries are becoming more popular, we're told. We'll certainly sample some if given the opportunity.

Tisers are carbonated fruit juices that are absolutely wonderful. They're available in apple, white and red grape, pear … all of which we've tried and love. New flavors include pomegranate and mango which obviously need to be tried before we leave. By the way, the company is 50% owned by CocaCola.

We've mentioned Amarula before. It is a cream liqueur made from the marula fruit. It's splendid. There's a wonderful African elephant on the label begging for more explanation. Here's the story … legend has it that elephants love the marula fruit (something like a mango) and when they eat rotting fruit on the ground, they become drunk. Scientists have discounted these stories, but the myth persists.

This is a mere sampling of the varied cuisines in South Africa. There's lots we haven't tried yet, like bobotie or koeksister, for instance. From the native cultures to Malay to Indian to Dutch to British to Asian … all have contributed to a melange of tastes and culinary offerings. We're game to try them all (other than the boerewors, that is!).

Birds, Baboons, Buffalos...and more at Kruger National Park

Staying overnight in the camp allowed us the advantage of an early gate opening at 0430. In reality, this ended up being just a bit too early. It was still too dark for photos as we drove out of the gate. No matter … we took our time, stopped for tea and rusks at a little lay-by and watched the sun come up.

We were taking a northern route today crossing into several different eco-zones of savanna, thickets and bushveld. The causeway across the Sabie River was busy with Chacma baboons. Baboons can be a real nuisance, but these guys were just waking up like us and though they impeded traffic a bit, they were fun to watch.

We hadn't gone too far when we spotted buffalos in a mudhole. They, too, were having problems keeping their eyes open. It must have been a rough night.

We purchased a paperback book, Find It, at the Skukuza camp store and it proved to be quite helpful. It  described all the eco-zones in the park, as well as indicating what animals we were apt to find in each one. It also provided several color photos of the area and identified animals and plants ... from umbrella acacia to jacanas to jackals. We had an African bird book and our Lonely Planet South Africa along with us, too.

It was an exceptionally good day for birds. We saw dozens of them with several new species. Here's a sampling …

We stopped for a picnic lunch and an elephant joined us, munching on a nearby tree.

The thickets were a fine place for rhinos. We saw a pair taking a leisurely walk some distance away from us.

The open savanna offered great grazing for zebra.

Giraffes weren't far away. We saw several munching on tall trees and shrubs. A lone male traveled across the bush, apparently uninterested in the others.

By 4pm, we were hot and tired and tuckered out. We headed back to Skukuza Camp for showers, a light dinner in our hut and a walk around the pretty campgrounds.

We ended the evening with a nightcap of Amarula, South Africa's primo cream liqueur. When in Rome ...

Drinking Our Way Around the World

Every country seems to have its most popular drink and we try to sample each one. We hate to miss anything that the locals think is good. Some are soft drinks; some are not so soft. We're equal-opportunity drinkers. We try them all.  

First of all, everywhere we've traveled, there is one common denominator drink-wise: Coca Cola. In fact, we just learned that Coca Cola/Coke is the second most identifiable English word in the world, just behind “Okay” which is first. Most soft drinks are drunk warm, off the shelf in other countries. No ice mania like in the US. Usually the range of products is not broad. Unlike the diet, original, caffeine-free, vanilla, cherry, zero, ad infinitum offerings, there's Coke and, well, that's about it.

Peru had Inca Cola, a sweet, bright yellow, carbonated soft drink that was so sugary, it made our teeth hurt when we tried it. Pisco, however, is a distilled grape brandy that is absolutely wonderful. There's a controversy between Peru and Chile as to who makes the best pisco. Our friend, Gonzalo, is probably reading this and without a doubt, Peru wins this controversy in our book. Gonzalo makes the best “Pisco Sours” on the planet. We visited his friend's bodega, Vista Alegre, and got a first-hand look at the pisco-making process, sampling several pisco sours along the way. We have cruising friends who loved pisco so much, they converted a water tank in their boat to a pisco tank!

Rum in the Caribbean and South America was cheap, cheap, cheap. Every island seemed to have its own. Some rums we tried were magnificent and as sip-able as a cognac. Others never made it past our tongues for fear they would rot our throat and stomach linings on the way down.

Then, of course, there's kava in the South Pacific. David sampled kava in Tonga and Fiji where women traditionally don't partake of it. I was feeling a little left out. In Fiji, it was required by law that a certain amount of kava be presented to each village chief as a gift on arrival. We carried some with us all through our travels there. It's made from a particular black pepper plant (Piper methysticum) and tends to calm you, rather than intoxicate you. It also numbs your tongue and lips. We were told it gets stronger the farther west you go in the South Pacific. Originally, it was masticated by young men, spit into kava bowls, water was added and everyone drank. That's still done in some areas, but we (yes, even women in Vanuatu) sampled kava several times in Vanuatu and watched them make it the modern way, using a meat grinder. It tastes very much like mud water.

In New Zealand we tried L & P (Lemon & Paeroa), “world famous in New Zealand” and only in New Zealand. It's made with lemon and spring water from the town of Paeora and it's pretty good. It's a Kiwi-ana thing.

In Australia, Bundaberg Ginger Beer caught our attention first … mostly because we arrived in Bundaberg, I guess. Not to be confused with ginger ale, ginger beer is spicy and wonderful and we drank lots of it in Australia. We haven't started brewing it ourselves yet, but you can buy kits for it.

We sampled wines in many countries. Chile has its cabernet sauvignon. Malbec was best in Argentina. They even have malbec-flavored ice cream! Uruguay offered a new variety of wine … tannat … which is wonderful and still rarely available in the US. (I think the Uruguayans drink it all themselves.) New Zealand has perfected its sauvignon blancs. Tasmania has cool climate wines that were excellent. We especially enjoyed pinot gris. Australia has a vibrant wine industry, but their wines are expensive.

In addition to the fine wines offered in the Winelands of South Africa, we discovered Amarula. Oh, my, what a delectable cream liqueur. Made from the native marula fruit, elephants, zebra, kudu and rhinos all take advantage of this fruit when it's ripe in the wild.

Let's not forget maté, that bitter herbal drink that the Argentinos and Uruguayans drink constantly. We tried it and found it too bitter, but we're told it's an acquired taste.

We even threw back vodka shooters at the southernmost bar on the planet at the Ukranian Vernadsky Station in Antarctica. Talk about packing a wallop!

What's the best? Depends on our mood and where we are at the time. Wherever we are, that's the best at the moment. So what's your favorite drink?