Eating And Drinking - South Africa travel vacations,tours,trips,hotel reservations

South Africa doesn't really have a coherent indigenous cuisine, although attempts have been made to elevate Cape Cuisine to this status. The one element which seems to unite the country is a love of meat, and as a visitor you might struggle to keep in check the locals' assumption that meat and lots of it is the ideal choice for every meal. Having said that, South Africa is an ideal place to try out all kinds of interesting types of meat, from ostrich to giraffe, and good quality steaks are inexpensive and freely available. Alternatively, it's well worth paying attention to South Africa's vast array of seafood, which includes a wide variety of fish, lobster (crayfish), oysters and mussels. Locally grown fruit, vegetables and salads are generally of a high standard, and often available from markets and farm stalls in areas such as the Western Cape. Drinking is dominated by a handful of unmemorable lager beers and South Africa's often superb wines. In the cities, though less so beyond them, there are numerous excellent restaurants where you can taste a spectrum of international styles

South African food
Although South Africa's indigenous offerings are few, you can still expect to eat well in this country. The variety of food available is huge, and context is always important - you may not want to eat boerewors at a restaurant; but at a braai under the stars, accompanied by a few beers, it's almost obligatory. Traditional African food tends to focus around stiff grain porridge called "pap" or "mielie pap" (similar to Italian polenta) accompanied by meat or vegetable-based sauces. Among white South Africans, Afrikaners have evolved a style of cooking known as boerekos ("farmer's food") that tends to be cholesterol-rich and can be heavy-going if you're not used to it. People of British extraction favour the traditional English style of meat and overcooked vegetables. As a snack, sun-dried meat called biltong , similar to beef jerky, is widely consumed.

Vegetarian food
While not quite a vegetarian paradise, South Africa is nevertheless vegetarian-savvy and you'll find at least one concession to meatless food on most menus. Even steakhouses will have something palatable on offer and generally offer the best salad bars around; especially at the Spur chain, where you can fill up on greens for not much more than US$2/£1.50. If you're self-catering in the larger cities, delicious dips and breads can be found at delis and Woolworths and Pick'n'Pay supermarkets. South Africa's wide choice of vegetables and fruit is mostly grown in the country and is inexpensive compared to Europe.

Eating out
Restaurants in South Africa offer outstanding value compared with Britain or North America. In every city you'll find places where you can eat a good main course for well under US$7/£4, and for US$15/£10 you can splurge on the best. Restaurants with imaginative menus are found in all the larger centres. Franschhoek , a small town in the Winelands, has established itself as a culinary centre for the country, where you'll find some fine eating places in extremely close proximity. As a rule, restaurants are licensed, but Muslim establishments serving Cape Cuisine don't allow alcohol at all.

An attractive phenomenon in the big cities, especially Cape Town, has been the rise of the continental-style cafés - easy-going, informal places where you can eat just as well as you would in a regular restaurant, but also drink coffee all night without feeling you're expected to order food. A reasonable meal in a café is unlikely to set you back more than US$5/£3. Café service tends to be slick and friendly, with long opening hours. Make sure you don't confuse this new type of café with the traditional South African café found in even the tiniest country town. The equivalent of a corner store elsewhere, they commonly sell a few magazines, soft drinks, sweets, crisps and an odd collection of tins and dry goods. Their only concession to ready-to-eat food is normally a meat pie heated in a microwave, or a leg of chicken that spent a little too long incubating in the warmer.

If popularity is the yardstick, then South Africa's real national cuisine is to be found in its franchise restaurants , which you'll find in every town of any size. The usual international names like KFC and Wimpy are omnipresent, but these are no match for South Africa's own home-grown American-style steakhouses, such as Spurs, Steers and Saddles , which project a wholesome Wild West image and remain popular with South African families. South Africa's great contribution to the world of fast food is the Nando's Chickenland chain, which grills excellent Portuguese-style chicken, served under a variety of spicy sauces. Expect to pay around US$3/£2 for a filling burger and chips or chicken meal at any of these places and around US$5/£3 for a good-sized steak.

Drinking
Although South Africa yearns to be a major wine-producing country, beer is indisputably the national drink. Beer is as much an emblem of South African manhood as the braai - and unlike the braai, it cuts through all race and class divisions. Pubs and bars are not the centres of social activity they are in the US or the UK, although in the African townships shebeens or informal bars do occupy this position; whites tend to do their drinking at home. In city centres, bars have traditionally been rough, men-only places, women being corralled into stiff lounges or ladies' bars attached to hotels. The Irish/British-style pub is beginning to make an appearance under the invasion of a series of franchised names, but has no deep roots in South African culture. Beer, wines and spirits can be bought at supermarkets and bottle stores (the equivalent of the British off-licence), which generally keep normal shopping hours, although some stay open until 6.30pm. Don't expect be able to buy liquor at night or on Sundays.

The braai and boerekos
Braai (which rhymes with "dry") is an abbreviation of braaivleis , an Afrikaans word translated as "meat grill". More than simply the process of cooking over an outdoor fire, however, a braai is a cultural event arguably even more central to the South African identity than barbecues are to Australians. Despite its identification as part of quintessential white South Africa, braais are now popular across the races, and at any national park, nature reserve or resort you'll never be far from the distinctive odour of gently sizzling meat.

A braai is an intensely social event, usually amongst family and friends and accompanied by gallons of beer. It's also probably the only occasion you'll catch an unreconstructed white South African man cooking. You can braai anything, but a traditional barbecue meal consists of huge slabs of steak, lamb cutlets and boerewors ("farmer's sausage"), a deliciously spicy South African speciality. Potatoes and onions wrapped in aluminium foil and placed in the embers are a usual accompaniment. The real skill comes in knowing when the coals are hot enough to cook the meat and in concocting the marinades and sauces - in fact, discussion on the topic vies with rugby as the subject of the most intense conversation around a braai.

A variant on the braai is potjiekos - pronounced "poy-key-kos" - (pot food), in which the food is cooked, preferably outdoor over an open fire, in a three-legged cast-iron cauldron the potjie ). In a similar vein, but cooked indoors is boerekos , (literally "farmer's food"), a style of cooking enjoyed mainly by Afrikaners. Much of it is similar to English food, but taken to cholesterol-rich extremes, with even the vegetables prepared with sugar and butter. Should you spend the night on an Afrikaans farm, you could well find yourself waking up to a breakfast of several eggs, steak, piles of bacon and boerewors. Boerekos comes into its own in its variety of over-the-top desserts, including koeksisters (plaited doughnuts saturated with syrup) and melktert ("milk tart"), a solid rich custard in a flan case.