Afrique du Sud

Braai

Wood-fire grilling as a social institution, with the fire lit long before the meat.

Boerewors

Coiled beef sausage spiced with coriander and clove, grilled whole and cut in lengths.

Bobotie

Curried minced meat with dried fruit under a baked egg custard and bay leaves.

Bunny chow

A hollowed loaf filled with Durban curry, the bread torn off as cutlery.

Potjiekos

Layered stew cooked in a three-legged iron pot over coals and never stirred.

Biltong

Air-dried beef or game cured with vinegar and coriander, sliced across the grain.

Droëwors

Thin boerewors dried hard, snapped into pieces and eaten like sweets.

Chakalaka

Spicy relish of onion, pepper, carrot and beans, served cold beside pap.

Pap

Stiff maize porridge shaped by hand and dipped into gravy or chakalaka.

Shisa nyama

Township butchery-and-braai where you buy the meat and they grill it for you.

Vetkoek

Fried dough balls split and filled with curried mince or apricot jam.

Sosaties

Cape Malay skewers of lamb marinated in curry, garlic and apricot, grilled with onion.

Gatsby

A metre of bread crammed with chips, masala steak and sauce, cut into quarters.

Snoek

Oily Cape fish grilled with apricot jam glaze, or smoked and flaked into pâté.

Melktert

Milk tart in a thin pastry shell, dusted with cinnamon and served cold.

Koeksisters

Plaited dough fried and plunged into ice-cold syrup so it stays crisp and soaked.

Malva pudding

Apricot sponge drenched in hot cream sauce the moment it leaves the oven.

Rooibos

Red bush tea from the Cederberg, caffeine-free and drunk with or without milk.

Amarula

Cream liqueur from marula fruit, poured over ice after dinner.

Pinotage

A local cross of pinot noir and cinsaut, smoky and divisive, grown nowhere else much.