A taste of South African cuisine

A new adventure began for your favorite food columnist with the invitation from Ambassador Pieter Vermeulen of the Republic of South Africa and Mrs. Chrisna Vermeulen in collaboration with the Cebu Chamber of Commerce & Industries, Marco Polo Plaza and the Darras and Bowler Wines to participate in the “South African Food & Wine Festival” Gala Dinner.

Only problem was that I remember very little about South Africa in World History: too many names and dates to commit to memory in so limited a time. The only thing I could relate South Africa to anything was the movie “Zulu,” which was shown in 1964, a historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke’s Drift between the British Army and the Zulus.

Original inhabitants of the region were the Khoisans and their culture as hunters and gatherers. They were hunting wild game and harvesting leaves, nuts and fruits like the amarula. Another movie, “Animals are Beautiful People,” a 1974 documentary, featured the wild life in Southern Africa, the Khoisans hunters with their language with clicking sounds and the fermenting of amarulas that intoxicated elephants and monkeys. You can really learn from the movies!

Later, the Bantu speaking people (Zulu and Xhosa) overtook supremacy in this region until a colony was established in the Cape of Good Hope (1652) by the Dutch East India Company. Dutch immigrants utilized slave labor from India, Madagascar and Indonesia. And the colony expanded with religious refugees from France and Germany. In 1795, Great Britain flexed some muscle: when the Dutch company suffered an economic meltdown in 1803, the Cape Colony became British.

A multiplicity of cuisines were available during that time; “Indian curries and British pies, Dutch cookies and Indonesian chutney, local ginger beer and French wines” and no wonder South African cuisine is also known as Rainbow Cuisine.

The local people called Boer (farmer, Dutch) disliked the British and 12,000 Boers (1830) said goodbye and founded the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. And the Boers became Afrikaners and the rest is modern history.

The Gala Dinner began with the biltong soup; Blue cheese and biltong (air dried beef) were placed in the soup bowl, and then creamy soup stock with the Cape Vintage (Reserved Port) was ladled. Cebuano equivalent of the biltong is the kosahos and the soup was delicious when accompanied by the Mont Du Toit Red Blend. The texture of the biltong reminded me of the tenacity of the Boers settling in Africa.

Second item was the Braised Snoek (game fish) with sweet potato Gratin and piquant pepper sambal and Roti, paired with the Meerendal Chardonnay. The fish tasted like fish cooked for Indian and Asian taste preferences and the white wine preceded by red wine shows how playful the antics of the two chefs, Beate Styrdom and Susina Maria Jooste. 

Two meat dishes were then served, the Kudu Carpaccio and the Karoo lamb braaivleis with bobotie accompanied by indigenous putupap, chackalaka and Msamba. Kudu is a mammal with the body of a carabao but the head of a deer and carpaccio means raw meat, thinly sliced and dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, parmesan shavings and basil pesto. I could not distinguish it from the usual beef carpaccio.

Braaivleis or barbecued lamb from the Karoo breed and the bobotie (minced meat) had very complex flavors and when eaten with the putupap (corn meal), chackalaka (spicy vegetable relish) and the msamba (pumpkin or sweet potato leaves & crushed peanuts), had both sweet and spicy taste, strange but delicious. The accompanying wines, the Mooiplass Cabernet Sauvignon and the Kaapzicht Steytler Vision were a great help in understanding these dishes and the Marco Polo staff were very quick to refill my glasses.

A fine ending to this Gala Dinner was the Amarula crème brulee and Malva pudding. The pudding has Dutch origins and Amarula is a liqueur made with sugar, cream and fruit from the African Marula tree, sweet reminders with a sense of history of the birth of Republic of South Africa.

My beloved readers are very lucky; the wines listed here are locally available and pretty soon, the opening of a new restaurant that specializes in South African cuisine.