South African Cuisine

South African cuisine is a genuine fusion tradition, blending indigenous Khoikhoi and Nguni foodways with Cape Malay cooking brought by people enslaved and exiled to the Cape from the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia and India from the 1650s onward, Dutch and Afrikaner farming traditions, British influence, and a large Indian community concentrated in Durban whose indentured laborer ancestors arrived from 1860 to work sugar plantations. Maize porridge, mealie pap, is a broad staple, and the braai, an outdoor barbecue, is a central social institution. Braai gatherings center on cooking meat over an open fire as a shared social occasion rather than a solitary task, and biltong, a dried and spiced meat, is another widely eaten product of the country's meat-centered food culture.