Traditional South African Cooking

by Pat Barton, Pat Barton

South African cuisine is a unique blend of the culinary art of many different cultures—the Dutch, French, German and British settlers, as well as the Malays who came from the East, all brought their own recipes to this country. The subtle adaptation of these ‘imported’ recipes in the addition of local ingredients and the introduction of innovative cooking methods have made for an original, much-loved cuisine. This book also features interesting snippets about the early newcomer’s way of life. Anyone who longs for a beloved grandmother’s famous milk tart or melkkos, or a great aunt’s delicious bobotie or vetkoek, should have this book in his or her kitchen!

Genres: Cookbooks

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a follow up to The Satanic Mechanic I pulled out my South African cookbook. I also have cookbooks for Ethiopia, Nigerian, and other African cuisines. In this one most are Afrikaans, though other cultures have a bit of representation. In many you are going to have to do substitutions because where are you going to get Springbok? Luckily if you live in the South, like I do, you can probably get good venison. A few just can't be done, like the Waterblommetjie soup. I wouldn't even know what could approximate the water flower used.

I have made some of the main courses and they are good. The breads are easy to do. The sweets are divine. If you've never tasted Melktert, Milk Tart, you need to. It's an almond flavored custard in a puff pastry shell. The book even has a section on candied peels and preserves.

While this is a totally niche purchase, it was a no brainer for me. I have a library of over a hundred cookbooks from cuisines around the world. I always picked up pamphlets and cookbooks when we traveled around the world. Though I've never been to Africa I can still enjoy the exotic cuisines.

[Chef JS · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, not great. The price was right, maybe $10 used?. This is an informative read if you want to get a basic overview of South African home cooking, which is exactly what I wanted. If the recipes looked like I could trust them, or if the photography had been better, this might have gotten a three, but these recipes are of the 'a lot has been left off the page' variety. A book with this many recipes should have triple the page-count it does. And the photography was of the 'every few pages, we'll take a poorly-lit, poorly composed still life of a few of the dishes, with a vague caption.'

So while this book was exactly what I wanted, I can't recommend it if you actually want to cook out of it. It'd be a great buy if you're already an accomplished cook, looking for some new ideas.

Oh, and one more note, neither good nor bad, just interesting: this book is UNFORGIVING when it comes to vocabulary and dialect. You will have to look stuff up. They use the Afrikaans terms for a WHOLE BUNCH of products. Like corn. Corn is 'meilie.' Cornmeal is 'meilie meal.' While this makes the book a little unwieldy, it also makes it more educational, so that's a push.