Often called “rainbow cuisine” due to the myriad of international flavors it possesses, South African food not only includes indigenous traditions, but also Indian, British, Malaysian, Portuguese and Dutch influences.
On the advice of a friend, Michelle, who attended the University of Cape Town, we planned a meal of potjiekos, a traditional meat stew typically flavored with beer, pap, a thick cornmeal porridge, and malva pudding, a sweet apricot bread pudding.
Made with a variety of ingredients, such as lamb, chicken or beef, potjiekos, or “small pot food” is a simple stew cooked over a fire in a potjie, or three-legged cast iron pot. For our attempted re-creation, we chose an oxtail version with potatoes, carrots, onion and brandy.Since the stew had to cook for a minimum of four hours and I had to work the day of our feast, I left the gathering of ingredients and preparation of the potjiekos up to Adam. Even though his last attempt at making dinner was a bit dicey at best, I felt rather confident in his capabilities.
His trip to the grocery store was fairly uneventful, although he did manage to piss off a little old lady by taking the last oxtail right before she hobbled up to the counter. According to Adam she repeatedly slammed her tennis ball-tipped walker down on the tiled floor before shuffling away, muttering what sounded like profanities under her breath.
Once back at the house, Adam studied the recipe. Basically, all he had to do was chop up the ingredients, throw them into the pot and let it simmer; but there was one step he was unsure of.
“When the recipe says to brown the meat with the onions, do the onions get added to the pot?” he texts me halfway through the day. I wasn’t able to respond right away, so with a strong desire to do things exactly right, Adam decided to confer with a few other sources.
Instead of checking the Internet, or maybe even calling his mother, Adam simply walked down the street and started asking people.
The first person he saw was his neighbor across the street, the Desperate Housewife. Although she seemed quiet happy for the conversation, she couldn’t give him a definitive answer, so he kept on walking.
Next he asked the Irishman, Sam, who lives a few houses down. Sam called his wife who wasn’t sure either.
On the third try Adam finally got the answer he was looking for from a mother of two a block down.
“If the recipe doesn’t specifically say not to, then go ahead and add the onions,” she said. Finally.
By the time I got out of work, the potjiekos was well on its way and smelling delicious. While it continued to simmer, I prepared the pap and the malva pudding.
Originally of Dutch origin and flavored with apricot preserves, the oven-fresh pudding was drizzled with a sweet, buttery cream sauce that immediately soaked into the spongy bread.We thought we had had the timing down right, that once the pudding came out of the oven, the stew would be done. In reality, the potjiekos was nowhere near ready by the time our dessert was.
While we continued to wait, we decided to test out the pudding with a large piece for each of us.
Moist and rich and still piping hot, we quickly renamed it Diabetic Coma pudding. Still, we did somehow finish our helpings.
Three hours later than we had planned, the potjiekos was finally done. Unfortunately, at that point we were still too jittery from our super-sweet dessert/first course that we didn’t have much of an appetite left. Still, we did enjoy the stew we actually ate.Although this week things didn't turn out exactly as we'd planned, at the end of the day at least we can be happy that with each new cuisine comes a whole new set of adventures. As for the World Cup, I'm rooting for a winner with some tasty home cooking!
