This is the standard by which all South African cookbooks are measured. I grew up on the dishes my mother made out of an earlier edition which she bought with her first paycheck when she first started working. That particular book is now falling apart. It was also in Afrikaans. They only translated it into English much later. For anyone starting out who has little or no knowledge of cooking, this is an excellent place to begin. It has all the standard recipes you could need and of course all the traditional South African dishes, like milk tart, koeksisters and pancakes with cinnamon and sugar.