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!).

Battlefields, Big Bugs and PMB

We spent the night in the little town of Dundee in the midst of an area of KwaZulu Natal known simply as the Battlefields. We stayed in a cozy little thatched hut, which incidentally had been a stable at one time, at Battlefields Country Lodge. Instead of warthogs or monkeys waking us in the morning, we had chickens … a bit more mundane.

There are 82 battlefields, museums, old fortifications and places of remembrance along the Battlefields Route, the largest concentration of significant battles and war-related sites in South Africa. Here, midst the lovely rolling hills and farmlands of today, the bloody Zulu-Anglo-Boer wars were fought. It's always an eerie feeling to travel through such areas. If you've visited Gettysburg or Antietam in the USA, it's that same feeling of loss, conflict and horror. We watched the 1964 classic movie Zulu recently which recounts the 1879 battle at Rourke's Drift. Though perhaps the truth is a bit distorted, it was an interesting movie to watch after having just visited the area.

You've probably guessed that I read my Lonely Planet travel guide like a novel, taking in every word and description. I hate to miss anything of interest. So when I read that the Natal Museum in Pietermaritzberg (PMB to the locals) was covered in giant creepy-crawlies, I thought it might be worth a stop since we were passing through PMB on our way back to Durban.

The museum was good in some ways and not so good in others. Several of the displays were missing. Many displays were not labeled, so we had no idea what we were looking at. The fluorescent lighting was atrocious, especially since every other bulb was turned off. The museum boasts the “largest collection of African mammals under one roof”, 650 species of birds, a primate gallery and an insect exhibition. The displays were pretty mediocre because many of the specimens were old and tired. The museum opened in 1904 and some of the preserved animals were probably around then. Of course, having just seen so many living animals in the wild might have had something to do with our low opinion. The three-legged chicken was pretty interesting though, since we hadn't seen one before.

They also had a requisite dinosaur exhibit which was small, but well done.

The best part of the museum, however, was the African culture area and the San cave art display, in particular. San (formerly known as bushmen) have occupied the nearby Drakensberg area for millennia. Their cave paintings are at least 4,000 years old and represent spiritual aspects of San life. A cave has been recreated in the museum with rock paintings replicated on the dimly lit walls. It was pretty impressive and interesting.

PMB is the capital of KwaZulu Natal province. We strolled around the city center for awhile, midst huge 19th century buildings. It was at PMB's railway station in 1893 that a young Indian lawyer,  Mohandas K. Gandhi, was forcibly ejected from a first class car reserved for whites. This was his first act of civil disobedience and the beginning of his passive resistance movement. A Gandhi statue now stands in front of the railway station commemorating the event.

Driving in South Africa is a risky business, to say the least. The drivers are aggressive and heavy footed and the roads are not always the best. Add to that driving on the left and a manual transmission and I had to salute David that we made it back to Durban in one piece ...nervous wrecks at times … but all in one piece nonetheless. We arrived at the Durban Marina in the late afternoon just as a huge cloudburst began. We sipped a glass of wine at the yacht club while waiting for the rain to subside, then quickly unloaded the car into a cart and headed down the long dock back to Nine of Cups.

She was patiently waiting there, showing off her new bimini and dodger which were installed while we were away. As always … it's great to travel and it's so good to be home.

Ndebele Cultural Village...or not

We spent the night in Nelspruit, a pleasant little city, and planned our drive home. I'd seen pictures of Ndebele women with their bright clothing and rings around their long necks. I did a little research and found an opportunity to learn more at a cultural center that was pretty much on our route.

“At Botshabelo, you can walk through a Ndebele cultural village with its striking art work decorating the walls of the dwellings. The old mission station is a site of historical interest close to Middelburg in Mpumalanga.” That's what I read on the website and I was keen to visit a Ndebele village because of their unique and colorful culture. “Open air museum” and “geometry, art and history” conjured up images of wandering about the old mission and getting a glimpse of a working Ndebele village and its cultural heritage. Boy, were we ever led astray.

An old man collected our entrance fee and lifted the gate. We drove for several kilometers on a rough, gravel road and finally arrived at the ruins of the old mission station. Along the way we'd seen a hostel, but it had obviously not been used in a long time. Paint was peeling, windows were broken and parts of it were crumbling to the ground. We'd also seen a lovely old brick church, nestled in the midst of weeds and overgrown grasses. A sign on one building advertised it as a wedding venue and there was even an overgrown lot for wedding guest parking.

The Botshabelo Mission Station, meaning ‘place of refuge’, was established by the Reverend Alexander Merensky from the Berlin Mission Society during the 1860s as a haven for Christians and converted refugees. We parked near the old seminary building because we couldn't proceed any further in the car. A sign on the building was marked “Information”, but the door was locked.  All of the old buildings were in various states of disrepair.

A sign prodded us onwards on foot towards the Ndebele Open Air Museum … only 200m. It was a rough path, all rutted with erosion. It led across a bridge over a dirty river. We passed some old ramshackle backpackers huts and approached the cultural village.

Oh, what a loss! Walls with brightly colored geometric designs for which the Ndebele are noted, were faded, but still there.

Beyond the walls, a warren of traditional huts still stood. We wandered around, pushing through the tall grass that had overtaken the village. Other than the structures themselves, there was not a sign of anything left.

We walked back to the car and decided to try the front door of the seminary. It was held shut with a large rock, but the door was unlocked. Inside, there were small, very old exhibits explaining a bit about the mission station and displaying a few Ndebele crafts.

The once-elegant Botshabelo tea garden looked to be appealing in its hey-day, but neglect had taken its toll. We could see people peeking from the windows, but no one came out to greet us.

We meandered along well-built stone walls that were sturdy and enduring despite their surroundings. Cows grazed and a woman suddenly appeared from one of the old buildings and hustled down the path towards the “curious” shop.

She opened the shop and beckoned us in. The pickings were slim; most shelves and display tables were bare. I purchased one of the traditional Ndebele dolls for R30 which seemed to please her. She posed for a picture.

We parked in the wedding guest lot and had our picnic lunch, then walked up to the old deserted church. It was dirty and the plaster was cracked. Some of the stained glass windows were broken and there was rain damage in places. In general though, a good clean-up, some basic repairs and a good mowing of the front lawn would have returned it to a lovely little country church. Like the well-built stone walls, it was enduring. Reverend David gave a brief, but stirring sermon.

Despite our disappointment over the abandoned cultural village, the few hours spent here were peaceful and enjoyable. Who'd have thought finding culture would be so difficult?