Where the recipes come from
Eight ways to the fire
Braai is usually told as a single tradition — the Afrikaans one. That is a section of the picture, not the picture. Every recipe in this collection carries its route of origin, and 19 of them carry more than one.
What a line is — and what it is not
A line is a route of origin, not a population group. A recipe carries a line because its road led there — not because particular people cook it today. Which also means the reverse: the line of a dish tells you nothing about who eats it. In South Africa everybody eats everything.
More than one line is expressly allowed and is often the whole point. Sosaties are Cape Malay and trekboer cooking, because the combination is the thing; 19 recipes here stand that way.
Seven of these lines are routes of migration. The eighth is not: braai pie, halloumi off the grid and the salads out of the supermarket shelf were invented at the Cape itself. Handing them to one of the seven would be an invented provenance.
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before 1652
Khoikhoi and San
Khoikhoi and San are the earliest documented inhabitants of the Cape Peninsula; meat over open coals and air-drying were practised here before the first Dutch East India Company ship dropped anchor.
- Brought to the fire
- Meat straight over the coals, drying as a way to keep it, game rather than slaughter stock.
3 recipes To the line →
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1652 to about 1900
Trekboers and Voortrekkers
The trekboers were migrant stock farmers of Dutch, German and French descent; their cooking is that of a household which cannot take its oven along.
- Brought to the fire
- The three-legged pot, sausage as a way of keeping meat, bread without an oven.
24 recipes To the line →
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from 1658
Cape Malay
Cape Malay cooking is the cooking of the descendants of people brought to the Cape in bondage from 1658 onwards — from the Indonesian archipelago, the Indian coast, Ceylon, Madagascar and East Africa — and it brought the spices by which South African food is recognised.
- Brought to the fire
- Spices, the sweet-sour handling of meat, marinades, the skewer.
8 recipes To the line →
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1806 to 1961
British period
The British line is the thinnest and at the same time the most visible: it contributed almost no main dish, but nearly everything that sits on the table next to the meat.
- Brought to the fire
- Chutneys, marinades, side salads — and the word chop.
7 recipes To the line →
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from 1860
Indian Durban
The Durban line goes back to Indian indentured workers brought to Natal from 1860; it gave the country its curry and a meal whose container you eat.
- Brought to the fire
- Curry as everyday food, bread as a vessel, the curry powder on the supermarket shelf.
2 recipes To the line →
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20th century to today
Shisa nyama
Shisa nyama is isiZulu for burn the meat, and it names the public form of braai that grew out of township butcheries: you choose raw meat at the counter, have it weighed, and have it cooked over the coals.
- Brought to the fire
- Braai as a public affair, butchery and fire in one place, fatty cuts, pap and chakalaka as standard.
9 recipes To the line →
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from the 1970s
Portuguese-Mozambican
The Portuguese-Mozambican line arrived with migration from Angola and Mozambique after 1974 and brought peri-peri — the small bird’s eye chilli and the sauce made from it.
- Brought to the fire
- Peri-peri, the flattened chicken, seafood over open coals.
2 recipes To the line →
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late 20th century to today
Made at the Cape
This line gathers the dishes that have no route of origin because they were invented in South Africa itself — out of what the supermarket shelf offered and what works on a grid.
- Brought to the fire
- The hinged grid as a baking tin, the packet product as an ingredient, the vegetarian main course at a meat fire.
14 recipes To the line →
The chronology in detail
When what arrived at the Cape, with years and sources — and with the contradictions where the sources disagree.