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Indigenous cookery

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 on demand. However, during the colonial period the seizure of communal land in South Africa helped to restrict and discourage traditional agriculture and wild harvesting, and reduced the extent of land available to black people.

Decline of indigenous cookery

Urbanization from the nineteenth century onward, 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 im modern South Africa are chicken, limes, garlic, ginger, chili, tomatoes, onions and many spices.

Settler cookery

South Africa was settled from the seventeenth century onwards 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 referred 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 Mugg & Bean.

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

Typical South African foods and dishes

References

  • Coetzee, Renata, 1977. The South African Culinary Tradition, C. Struik Publishers, Cape Town, South Africa.
  • Leipoldt, C. Louis, 1976. Leipoldt’s Cape Cookery, Fleesch and Partners, Cape Town, South Africa.
  • Van Wyk, B. and Gericke, N., 2000. People's plants: A guide to useful plants of Southern Africa, Briza, Pretoria, South Africa.
  • Wylie, D., 2001. Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA., United States of America.
  • Routledge Encyclopaedia of Africa - Farming

External links

Template:Cuisine of Africa Template:South African topics


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