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Traditional foods – Gold restaurant

South Africans love their braai’s (barbeques) and are passionate about how it should be done, so be warned – don’t interfere with a South African man and his braai! But there are many more delicious, traditional South African foods available; the most famous of this is probably biltong , which is strips of dried meat which come in various flavour and types. Potjiekos is a delicious slowly cooked meat and vegetable stew, which is traditionally cooked over an open fire. Mielie Pap, is a stiff corn meal mix, is a staple food of a South African diet.

Although there are many South African traditional foods, you will also find Chinese restaurants, Indian restaurants, fish and chip shops and many other more mainstream eateries. So don’t worry if Kudu and Crocodile aren’t to your taste, everyone is catered for in South Africa.

South African Wine is probably most well known in the area of the Western Cape, with pinotage and hanepoort being made from specially cultivated grape in the Cape area. Beer is drunk widely in South Africa especially with a braai or when the rugby or cricket is on! Castle is South Africa ’s own beer, but Amstel, Black Label and many others are available.

It is generally the women of Sub-Saharan Africa who do most of the work related to food. This includes work on the “plantations” or “shambas” (as cultivated fields are called), such as planting, weeding, harvesting, as well cooking as cooking and serving the food.

The African kitchen is traditionally outside or in a separate building apart from the sleeping and living quarters. By far the most traditional and to this day the most common sight in an African kitchen is a large swing blackpots filled with meat, vegetables, and spices simmering over a fire. The pot usually sits on three stones arranged in a triangle, and the fire slowly consumes three pieces of wood that meet at a point under the pot.

African, Italian, Portuguese, Indian, Japanese, South African – eating in cosmopolitan South Africa is a deliciously global taste sensation. Rivaling any country in the world, South Africa boasts eateries to satisfy any palate. It is a food connoisseur’s heaven in which every craving is catered for.

With restaurants to suit various budgets, you can opt for a local bite from a street vendor or indulge in fine dining at one of the award-winning venues in each city. Choose an elegant eatery with sophisticated ambience or a laidback restaurant offering an accompaniment of live music such as Gold Restaurant.

Enjoy good South African Traditional Food

An influx of immigrants from around Africa has helped to cause an explosion of African flavours in South Africa’s major cities. Deep in each city, local restaurants offer local cuisine – sample Mopani worms or stewed tripe, or how about fresh seafood and juicy steaks.

Of course you can always cook up a traditional ‘boerewors braai’ (sausage barbeque). Whatever kind of meal you are after; eating in South Africa is definitely a mouth-watering experience.

In South Africa you can find just about any food you wish for. In just one street in a town in South Africa you can find Italian, Moroccan, Chinese, Portuguese and Indian food, amongst others. You can even have anything from a hamburger to sushi.

South African traditional foods however include things such as crocodile sirloin, fried caterpillars, Cape Malay food and even sheep heads. Some South Africans might even shake their heads at this selection, but others eat this way every day. With South Africa having so many different cultures and beliefs, you will also find that certain foods are eaten for certain occasions.

There are those South African foods which are to the taste bud of many a tourist, or even South African, much less daring than snake meat. Things such as biltong, which is dried and salted meat, may not sound appealing but may also be rather addictive! In South Africa it seems a rugby match cannot be watched without it, and no South African would venture on a road trip without it either. You can try babotie, which is a much-improved (Malay) version of Shepard’s pie. Or you could try a traditional South African braai (BBQ) with boerewors (hand-made farm sausage).

Maize has been the basis of African cuisine for many years and each community, be it Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, or Xhosa, has a different preference for eating it, although some dishes or meals have approval by most of them.

Although these ’speciality’ dishes are somewhat harder to find in South Africa, the best idea is to find a friend and go home with them for mom’s cooking or dad’s braai, as nothing can beat good South African home cooking!

It must be said that it was in the search for food that shaped modern South Africa. The need for refreshment compelled the Dutch East India Company to plant a farm at the tip of Africa. The company was drawn by spices to Java during the mid 1600s and needed half-way refreshment stop for its ships.

Since then history has played a huge role in South African foods, with all those settling here or just passing through having an impact on the cuisine. Today the rainbow which symbolises the country (by the national flag also) does not only refer to the food, but also the extraordinary range of cuisines.

African cuisine is a generalized term collectively referring to the cuisines of Africa. The continent of Africa is the second largest landmass on Earth, and is home to hundreds of different cultural and ethnic groups. This diversity is also reflected in the many local culinary traditions in terms of choice of ingredients, as well as in the style of preparation and cooking techniques.

Traditionally, the various cuisines of Africa use a combination of locally available fruits, cereal grains and vegetables, as well as milk and meat products. In some parts of the continent, the traditional diet features a preponderance of milk, curd and whey products. In much of Tropical Africa, however, cow’s milk is rare and cannot be produced locally (owing to various diseases that affect livestock). Depending on the region, there are also sometimes quite significant differences in the eating and drinking habits and proclivities throughout the continent’s many populations: Central Africa, East Africa, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa each have their own distinctive dishes, preparation techniques, and consumption mores.

Many have wondered: What do Africans eat and what does traditional African food looks like?

African foods are plentiful and varied. Rich in dietary fibre and often organic, they present a healthy choice when eaten in the right combination.

African food recipes are centered round a list of ingredients easily found all over the continent. These are natural unrefined food items, easily grown at subsistence farms not far away from home.

In the whole of sub Saharan Africa, from Dakar (Senegal) to Dar es Salam (Tanzania), southwards to Cape Town (South Africa), most foods from Africa are based on common foodstuffs like cassava, yam, cocoyam, rice, beans, maize, sorghum, millet, groundnut, coconut, plantain, melons, sea foods, poultry, beef, goat meat, bush meat, palm oil, potatoes, lentil, vegetables, vegetable oils, and a wide selection of tantalizing spices. Out of these seemingly few list of items comes a literally unending array of various delicacies.

African foods are mainly starch based, with generous amount of vegetables and fresh or roasted fish or meat. This means that they are devoid of refined sugars and excess food additives and rich in bulk and fibre. Again, 90% or more of African foods are organic.

These foods are often grown behind the house at subsistence level, helped by the beautiful tropical weather, which means that different varieties of vegetables, fruits, cereals, tubers, nuts, and grains are grown all year round.

Fish, milk, meat from poultry or cow, goat, lamb, or game (“bush meat”) as well as other sea foods provide their animal protein in all African communities.

Whether in the bushy savannas, typical rain forest, or coastal riverine settlements, access to such primary source of protein is not in short supply in stable traditional African setting.

There is simply no where in African you would not find farmers, hunters, herdsmen or fishermen…from Yaounde, Sapele, and Lagos to Port Alexandria.

South Africa is a large country at the southern tip of the African continent. It is slightly less than twice the size of Texas. The country has large areas of plateaus, with some areas of higher elevations in the eastern Drakensberg Mountains, near the border with Lesotho. Over 80 percent of South Africa’s land could be farmed, but only about 12 percent is devoted to agriculture. The main crop is corn (called “mealies” in South Africa). Wheat can only be grown in winter, when the climate is like the Northern Hemisphere’s summer. “Kaffir corn,” which is really sorghum (a grass similar to Indian corn), is another important crop. South African farmers also raise livestock, but their herds do not produce enough meat to feed the population. Meat is imported in the form of live animals from neighbouring Namibia and Botswana.