Which wood for the braai and the fireplace?

Rooikrans is what most braais at the Cape run on, for a practical reason: after roughly 40 minutes you have coals hot enough for wors and chops. They do not last forever, though — perfect for a 45-to-60-minute braai, wrong for a three-hour potjie.

The acacia originally comes from Australia and has spread along the coast to the point of crowding out indigenous fynbos. Burning rooikrans is, in that sense, conservation work with dinner as a side effect.

Sekelbos is traded less as fuel than as flavour. The wood dries down in the bushveld sun to a moisture content between zero and one percent and carries aromatic oils that release a distinctly sweet smoke as it burns.

That makes it the opposite of a neutral wood. Sear a steak quickly and you will barely notice. Keep poultry or pork belly over the coals for longer and the difference is obvious.

Kameeldoring is the benchmark other firewood is measured against: dense, heavy, near bone-dry, with a flame that stands still and coals that carry for hours. In a fireplace that means loading once instead of feeding constantly, and barely any smoke in the room.

The catch is legal. The tree grows extremely slowly and is listed as a protected species under South Africa's National Forests Act. Cutting living trees without a permit is an offence. What is legally on the market almost always comes from Namibia, where camel thorn is farmed for the purpose, or from demonstrably dead trees.

Black wattle is the workhorse. It is softer than rooikrans or kameeldoring, so it catches faster and lights a fire well — yet it holds a surprisingly long, even bed of coals and gives meat a pronounced smoky note.

This acacia is introduced too and counts as invasive in South Africa because it draws enormous amounts of water along riverbanks. Burning it is as uncontroversial as burning rooikrans.