A South African Omnivore’s 100

Just like comparisons, lists are odious. As soon as you make a list, you set yourself up to be disagreed with, shouted down, corrected and generally berated for what you included – and for what you left out. It’s a lose-lose situation! But when you are as list-obsessed as I am, you go ahead and make the list anyway. After all, you are talking to the woman whose favourite book for most of the 80s was the Book of Lists.

Cast your minds back about to the blogosphere about 18 months or so ago when there was a list dong the rounds called the Omnivore’s 100. Somebody had bravely taken it upon himself to put together and publicly share a list of the 100 things that he thought every omnivorous foodie should try at least once. Of course, it took all of 5 minutes for people to start pulling the list apart: it was too American (who else eats S’mores?); not vegetarian enough (umm… omnivore…!); not ethnic enough – you get the picture. Soon, every man and his dog was putting together a top 100 list and I toyed briefly with putting together a South African one. Sadly, I never got round to it… until now.

My list is, of course, purely subjective and I’m not expecting every other South African to agree with my choices.  But if you are heading for South Africa any time soon, whether to attend the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup or for any other reason, you could do a lot worse than trying the things on this list to get an idea of the diversity of the country’s cuisine.  Bon appetit!

1. Biltong
2. Droëwors
3. Bokkoms
4. Kudu
5. Springbok
6. Ostrich meat (as steak, mince or sausage)
7. Knysna oysters
8. Alikreukel (a type of large periwinkle)
9. Snoek
10. Warthog
11. Crocodile
12. Kakamas yellow cling peaches
13. Guavas
14. Peppadews
15. Prickly pears
16. Rooibos tea (also known as redbush tea)
17. Red espresso
18. Koeksusters (Afrikaner version)
19. Koe’susters (Cape Malay version)
20. Venison stew served with dried peaches
21. Souskluitjies (sweet dumplings)
22. Karoo lamb
23. Umnqushu (samp and beans)
24. Umqomboti (sorghum beer)
25. Morogo/Mfino (maize meal with wild green leaves like dandelions, pumpkin leaves or wild spinach)
26. Amasi (fermented milk – like plain yoghurt)
27. Ouma rusks
28. Mrs Ball’s chutney
29. Aromat
30. Sousboontjies (beans in sauce)
31. Slaphakskeentjies (cooked onion salad in a sweet sauce)
32. Bunny chow
33. Vetkoek (deep-fried doughballs, usually filled with sweet or savoury filling)
34. Milk tart
35. Smileys (whole roasted sheep’s head – not for the faint-hearted!)
36. Karoo “oysters” (grilled sheep’s testicles)
37. Skaapstertjies (grilled sheep’s tails)
38. Curried tripe & trotters
39. Blancmange
40. Crunchies (crunchy oat cookies)
41. Peppermint Crisp
42. Cape brandy pudding (date pudding with a brandy syrup)
43. Brandy & Coke
44. Steers burger (knocks McDonalds clear out of the park!)
45. Nando’s peri-peri chicken
46. Cape seed loaf (a multi-grain bread)
47. Wasgoedbondeltjies (cooked pork mince in pastry)
48. Skilpadjies/Vlermuise (lamb’s liver wrapped in caul fat and grilled)
49. Boerewors
50. Mieliepap (maize porridge)
51. Potjiekos
52. Crayfish/Kreef (Cape rock lobster)
53. Yellowtail sashimi (yellowtail being a local fish)
54. Spur pink sauce
55. Spur onion rings
56. Monkeygland sauce (no real monkeys involved!)
57. Dom Pedros
58. Amarula Cream liqueur
59. Van der Hum liqueur (flavoured with naartjies)
60. Naartjies (loose-skinned citrus fruits similar to satsumas)
61. Romany Creams
62. TV Bar (a chocolate bar)
63. Safari minced fruit dainties
64. Fruit roll( fruit leather made from local fruits)
65. Snowballs (cake balls sandwiched with jam and rolled in dessicated coconut)
66. Apricot jam
67. Shanghai steak (beef strips with peas, served in all South African Chinese restaurants, but aparently not in China!)
68. Mopane worms
69. Bobotie
70. “Walkie-talkies” (chicken feet and beaks deep-fried in batter)
71. Shawarma (grilled lamb in pita – hugely popular in Johannesburg)
72. Sosaties
73. Samoosas
74. Biriyani
75. Gesmoorde vis (salted or smoked fish with tomatoes and potatoes)
76. Denningvleis (a Cape Malay lamb dish)
77. Hertzoggies (tartlets with an apricot jam and meringue filling)
78. Pickled fish
79. Asynpoeding (vinegar pudding)
80. Peppermint Crisp tart
81. Ostrich egg
82. Chilli bites (chickpea flour fritters with spinach and chilli, popular in Durban)
83. Chakalaka (spicy relish)
84. Kaapse jongens (brandied grapes)
85. Roosterkoek (bread baked on the BBQ grill)
86. Pampoenkoekies (cinamonny pumpkin fritters)
87. Pot bread
88. Ghoukums (sour figs)
89. Anchovy toast (spread thick with Peck’s Anchovette)
90. Melon and ginger preserve
91. Melrose biltong cheese spread
92. Bovril (spread on bread, not as a drink!)
93. Eskort “Russian” sausages
94. Nik Naks (nothing like the UK version!)
95. Mango atjar (a Cape Malay pickle)
96. Murkhu (chickpea flour snack, popular in Durban)
97. Roti (flatbread eaten with curries)
98. Gem squash
99. Waterblommetjiebredie
100. Pineapple chunks coated with chilli powder (served on sticks in Durban)

Phew!  And so we’ve eaten our way through the country’s provinces and history, from the sublime to the ridiculous!  I hope that visitors get to try even a small number of these items – there certainly is variety in there.  If you think there’s anything I’ve left out or should have left out, leave me a comment – I’d love to hear what you think.

This post is part of a new series for 2010 called Sundays in South Africa.  As the entire football-conscious world knows by now, the FIFA World Cup 2010 will be taking place for the first time ever on African soil – in my home country of South Africa!  I can’t tell you how proud this makes me, or how good it is to see that all the stadiums that the naysayers said would never be built on time standing tall and proud and beautiful.  The country is, of course, anticipating a huge surge in visitors and I know that many people will see the cup as a reason to visit a country they have long been meaning to visit, and use the tournament as a jumping-off point for visiting other, non-football South African destinations. With this in mind, as well as my backlog of posts about my South African trips, I will be trying to post a review of somewhere South African, or a South African recipe, every Sunday in the run-up to the tournament.  I can’t pretend it is going to be a comprehensive guide to South Africa – but it will certainly be enough to give you some ideas!  Click here for previous posts in the series.