GREAT FOOD EXPERIENCES OF SOUTH AFRICA

Since starting my travels in Peru, I have dedicated myself to eating as many different foods and trying as many different tastes as I possibly could. South Africa was no different. Here, I set about experiencing as many new, strange or exotic culinary offerings as I possibly could. Nothing was off limits! Except, perhaps, for wild game biltong. Which I had to give a “wide berth” to for a few months after my first experience with it. I found that you needed to open your mind and allow your taste buds to decide what is good. Use your mind, nor somebody else’s food prejudices. My old dad once said “if someone is going to take the time to prepare something for you, you need to take the time to appreciate it”.

Over time, my body evolved from a lean fighting machine shape. Into a more sexy, shapeless container that could be stretched to receive copious amounts of food. During our 2-1/2 years in South Africa we had many opportunities to sample weird and wonderful dishes. Some of which I will try to describe in this post. Unfortunately I did not take many food pictures at this period of my life, so my description will have to suffice. Deysi, for the most part tried “almost” everything, but still drew the line for certain things. The girls pretty much tried nothing, unless it came from their Mom, their maid or a fast-food chain.

One of the first, interesting, food choices I remember took place at another company Kumbaya event, not long after our arrival. This event was called The Great Company Chili Cook-off. It consisted of small teams (like spouses, or friends) who had their own special Chili recipe and wanted to try it out on someone other than family or guests, all of whom had to compliment “dad’s” cooking, no matter what it tasted like. I would have volunteered ol’ Ange to mete out the brutal truth about the dishes. If I had known, the expertise she would later show, when critiquing the watercress soup in the Seychelles.

In any event, it turned out that there were many Chili recipes to sample. They ranged from sweet and mild to “burning ring of fire” hot. Most had red beans and some sort of Chili pepper as the main ingredients. Along with, assorted meat such as beef, pork, sheep and roadkill. Some meat was ground, some chopped and some left in chunks. I, of course, loved them all, but the one that stuck in my mind was the Ostrich Chili. Just reading the name on the booth conjured up images of a 150 pound turkey like breast. Similar in size to a Volkswagen. Lying on a great huge table with people hacking away at it and rendering a bloody huge pile of Ostrich meat. I couldn’t wait to get some.

When it was finally deemed ready I got me a big old bowl of it and chowed down. I might say that it didn’t come to the level of “Kobe beef”. It was dark meat, very lean and very chewy. It had a flavour much like Ostrich meat. I say that because there was nothing, to date, in my database to compare the taste to. It wasn’t like Turkey dark meat, nor was it like pork and it was quite a lot paler than beef. It had a wee bit of a “wild” taste like you would taste in wild goose. I said it was chewy, and it was, but not in a bad way. It just had a different texture than what we were use to. I enjoyed it but it did not rise to the level of “loved it”.

Another eating experience that has stayed, more with Deysi, than with me was an evening out, with our neighbours during the time that Maria and Jack were with us in South Africa. We went for a very special dinner at a very exclusive restaurant in Sandton City, not to far from our house. The occasion was very special, it was the evening that Jack proposed to Maria and she agreed to become his wife. Waahhoo a new brother in the family. It was so romantic, it brought a small “tear” to my eye. The scene was set for a very happy occasion. The spirits were high and for most, the spirits were flowing.

I was still the DD, after about 6 years by this time, so politely declined all offers and toasted with Diet Coke. I can’t say I was the life of the party, and can’t remember being particularly funny on sodas, however……. Anyway we all ordered something special . Our neighbour and Deysi both ordered the fish John Dory, which was the most expensive fish on offer at this restaurant. Jack and I ate the “Kingklip”, another eel like fish found in the Southern Hemisphere. The John Dory is not a particular pretty fish, it has 10 long spikes protruding from its back, a yellow spot on its body that resembles another eye, puckered up protruding mouth and is round, yet still thin (like a loony).

The flesh is white and delicious. They were baked and served whole, minus the spines, but with everything else intact. Each fish filled a whole dinner plate and spilled a little bit over the edges. I was so jealous. Our neighbour, the one straight across the street from us, immediately instructs Deysi on the fine points of eating the John Dory. He points out that not only, is the flesh delicious, but the skin is a particular delicacy of fish aficionados, in South Africa. She is buying in and even has a nibble of the skin before sending, the remaining skin, down my way. Well she has pretty much destroyed that fish and is starting to lean backward with a contented sigh, when our friend says “now comes the absolute best part of the fish”.

Deysi looks on in interest as he picks up the head, out of the remaining rubble on his plate, grips it firmly, puts a big ol’ lip lock on that head and sucks one of the eyes right out of it. This accompanied by a sucking and smacking sound that would make the Japanese proud. Deysi is stunned, you can hear her thinking, “nah, that really didn’t happen”! As if he had heard her, he grabs that head again, flips it over and with great gusto, slurps the eyeball right out of the other side of the head. Geezus.

Deysi is paralyzed. It’s her turn now and I am ready to see this. I am sure she is going to pass this delicacy down my way and I’m thinking can I do this? She is noticeably pale by this time and starts with, “it was so delicious, I ate it all and don’t even have room for another morsel, no matter how tiny”. I’m thinking yeah “bullshit”, but manage to stifle myself before I blurt out something that gets me in trouble. I am going to end this post here. I’ll let you decide how this ended.

Another great food experience took place, in a restaurant, not far from home, but more in the direction of Pretoria. It was a place called the Train Restaurant and offered over 100 varieties of “wild game”. I just had to try this. I even managed to get Deysi to buy in. The girls, yup you guessed it, they are making retching noises, at the mere sound of it. Good, saved me a bit of money, and once again, they missed out on a culinary adventure. Try to come up with 100 different types of “wild game” in Africa and soon you will realize that it had to include everything that walked, crawled, swung thru the trees, flew, drug itself along the ground or lurked in the tepid waters of swamps.

I’m telling you, everything you could dream up was on offer in this restaurant in two massive long buffet tables, one on each side of a whole train car, that had been parked there for just this purpose. There were additional cars connected to the food car, for eating. It was pretty elegant, and might show how the idle rich of Africa enjoyed their dining in the days of the railroad. Had I landed in heaven? You think? Now you had to make a plan, to attack this much food. You didn’t want to jump in, gorge on 5 pounds of elephant delights, and have to tap out before you get to the second offering. Slow and easy. Start with a little morsel of the Zebra in sauce, add a barbecued giraffe leg (kidding), a couple of scoops of hippo soup, gazelle steak, a Bok or two, a buzzard wing, maybe some lion loin, and a croc patty.

Now you are at the end of the appetizer table. Sit down and slowly consume it while planning where to attack next. It was a lot of food! I might say, I personally ate as many different items as I could hold. Deysi also found some “wild” delights that she couldn’t resist. One thing I did notice, was that almost everything offered, from baboon to buzzard and through all the food groups was cooked in some kind of sauce. There were no dishes that had, like a roast on a plate, or a grilled steak, everything had a sauce. I expect that this was because, the natural leaness and toughness of the meat, required that it be cooked in something to keep it a bit softer and juicier. Did I have a favourite section? Well not really, but the Zebra was pretty tasty. Like a horse right?

This post is getting rather long, and I expect quite boring for some. For that reason, I will stop after one last food story. The occasion for this was Deysi’s XX birthday. I decided to throw her a party at our house and invite friends from the office, friends from the neighbourhood and friends of friends. Our home was ultimately setup for partying, with bars inside and out, a large covered patio, two large reception rooms, and the treasure at the end of the hall, the computer room running video golf for all the local males in attendance (read an earlier post about this). Anyway we had a gathering of upwards of 30 people. The drinks were flowing and the spirits were high. Deysi, was beautiful and the centre of attention. Not only was she guest of honour but she had done almost all of the preparation work, even though I thought, that I did the work. Well someone has to be the idea guy, right?

Selena, the maid, had been cooking for two days. Out back I had two barbecues running. One with a hip of beef on a rotisserie and the other with a “wild boar” strapped to it. Selena’s man friend was hired to turn the beef and Johannes supervised the boar. My god was there food. Anyone that knows me, understands just how much food I could prepare. About enough to feed 100 or more rugby players. The beef and the pig were slowly cooked for most of the afternoon and ready to eat in the evening. Now I don’t have to say anything about the prime rib, it was delicious and cooked thru all of its ranges of doneness. The wild boar is what I want to describe. Strapped onto the barbecue, it probably weighed 15-20 pounds. The meat was a deep red and there was not one tiny piece of fat evident.

Throughout the day ol’ Johannes had to baste this boar with oil and spices (or at least he did every time I came around the back to see how he was doing). I’m sure he thought we were crazy to add a coating onto our meat. In any event once done, the boar had not changed color much but was now, maybe an even deeper shade of red. It was extremely dry and lean. It had a deep smoky ham like flavour, but was much stronger in flavour than a ham from a domestic hog. Again, I enjoyed it, but was not going to put it into the rotation for everyday meals. Deysi was very happy and so it stands to reason that I must have been also. And so ends a brief look at some of the more memorable food we ate in Africa. Johannes, who at that time fancied himself jewish, made an exception to his beliefs and took the remaining wild boar to his room, to snack on.