The braai is a quintessential South African pastime. Cooking outdoors over an open fire is a favourite social activity in South Africa (particularly combined with beer and rugby!) What is called a barbeque in other parts of the world is known as a braai in South Africa, and there are a few local specialities that no South African braai should be without.

South Africans are avid meat eaters and you can be sure that a braai will consist of a selection of juicy steak, lamb chops, pork sausages and the firm favourite: boerewors.

Boerewors means “farmer’s sausage” in local Afrikaans. While different areas have special recipes, borewors (wors for short) is a luscious long coil of sausage made from pork and beef and spiced with a selection of spices like coriander, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. No braai is complete without a coil of wors sizzling on the braai grid.

Sosaties are a Cape Malay addition to the braai menu. Skewers of meat or fish and a selection of vegetables and dried fruit marinade in a sticky sauce before joining the other meat on the braai grid.

A beautiful piece of fresh fish or crayfish makes an excellent braai meal too. The general idea is to cook it all over the fire, potatoes or butternut wrapped in tin foil, corn on the cob and even a braai toastie for a quick starter snack. This outdoor feast goes very well with an ice cold beer or glass of delicious South African wine.

Cape Malay cuisine was born in Cape Town and the district of town most reminiscent of the Cape Malay is Bo-Kaap. This is a historic quarter of the city, an area of cobbled streets fringed by rows of 18^th Century cottages, vibrantly coloured with every colour of the rainbow.

Directly translated, Bo-Kaap means “above cape”. This colourful neighbourhood lies on the mountain slopes above the Cape Town city centre.

There is a bustle on these streets and corner cafes issue delicious smells of the spices so popular in the food.

While much of old Cape Town has been lost to progress, in the Bo-Kaap the spirit of the original silversmiths, masons, milliners, tailors and cobblers lives on. Cape Malay describes the Bo-Kaap’s original residents, who hailed from many different places from East Africa to Malaysia. They epitomise the melting pot which is Cape Town and the vast mix of cultures that makes up South Africa, the rainbow nation.

The Malay influence in Cape Cuisine comes from the use of spices, particularly ginger, turmeric and cinnamon. Curry is a firm favourite on the Cape Town menu, milder and sweeter than typical Indian curry. The other distinct Cape Malay cooking characteristic is the use of fruit in savoury dishes, giving them a seductive sweet and sour edge.

Typical Cape Malay Dishes:

Bobotie

A meat or fish pie delicately flavoured with a mix of spices, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and turmeric and added raisins or sultanas. The mix is topped with an egg custard and baked. Bobotie is usually served with spiced yellow rice and fruit chutney is a favourite accompaniment.

Denningvleis

A hearty meat stew cooked with bay leaves and  flavoured with lemon juice. Originally this stew would have been made with water buffalo, but in South Africa mutton is used.

Waterblommetjie Bredie

Another hearty mutton stew. The flavour is enhanced by the addition of water lilies (waterblommetjie) which adds a tart taste to the full bodied mutton flavours.

Pumpkin

Meals are usually accompanied by sweet pumpkin cooked with cinnamon, honey, butter and brown sugar that caramelises to form a sticky glaze. Another favourite is pumpkin fritters dusted with cinnamon.

Frikkadels

Spicy meatballs flavoured with nutmeg, masala, mint and parsley and baked in the oven.

Koeksisters

Deliciously sweet balls of yeasty dough flavoured with cinnamon, ginger and cardamom, cooked in syrup and sprinkled with coconut.

Food was the reason that the Dutch first established a colony on the southern tip of Africa.

They recognised a need for a replenishment station for ships headed to the East, so the Dutch established a fort in what has now become Cape Town. They established gardens for growing fruit and vegetables to supply passing ships and feed the fledgling settlement standing at the foot of Table Mountain.

The first group of Malaysian state prisoners were brought to South Africa from Java and the neighboring Indonesian islands in the late 1600's. Their influence in the kitchen had a lasting affect on Cape Cuisine. Cape Malay cooking is a combination of traditionally bland Dutch food enlivened with cool sambals and hot atchars. The Cape Malay work magic with spices from the East; spices like turmeric, aniseed, fenugreek, cumin, garlic, cardamom, cassia, and ginger.

The harbour at Cape Town soon became a melting pot of people from all over the world. Immigrants from Holland, Italy, France and Portugal joined convicts from China, slaves from Mozambique and prisoners from Java. This glorious mix of cultures had a lasting affect on kitchens in South Africa.

 History was made in African Big Wave Surfing this weekend with a very sucessful Big Wave Africa surf contest held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Local surfer, Twiggy Baker, won the contest which was held on Saturday with consistent 15 to 20 foot waves.

Click here for pictures of the action.

Surfing enthusiasts in Cape Town, South Africa, are poised with excitement to see if they will be enjoying some big wave surfing action this weekend. The Big Wave Africa surf competition is one of the longest running big wave surfing competitions in the world that sees top international big wave surfers converge on Cape Town to join local surfers conquering Africa’s giant wave, Dungeons.

Dungeons is a wave that breaks in the large winter swells off the coast of Hout Bay in Cape Town. Hout Bay lies on the most westerly point on the tip of Africa, and Dungeons is the first reef that is struck by the huge swell generated in the vast expanse of the icy South Atlantic Ocean.

Only the brave dare to ride this wave. Apart from the sheer mass of water in these giant waves, the icy sea temperature, nearby kelp beds and presence of Great White Sharks make for sheer adrenaline adventure.

The Red Bull Big Wave Africa competition is a logistical nightmare. There are no bouys in the South Atlantic, so it is very difficult to predict when the giant waves will strike. Contestants are on standby for a 5 week window period. A minimum of 15-foot swell and the right wind conditions are required for the contest to go ahead. Spectators keep their eye on the contest website to see when the competition status is "green."

Click here to visit the official contest site.

Few people realise that wine has been made in South Africa since the 1600s. The Dutch were the first European settlers who arrived at the Cape, lying on the southern tip of Africa. They established a base at the Cape (now Cape Town) to act as a refreshment station for the ships that sailed from Europe round the tip of Africa to the East.

The Dutch planted vegetable gardens and the first governor, Jan van Riebeek, planted a vineyard in 1655. 1659 saw the first wine made from these grapes but Van Riebeek was no viticulturalist. He was replaced as governor by Simon van der Stel who was knowledgeable about winemaking. The Constantia Estate was established in 1685. Soon it was world famous for its wine. Their Vin de Constance became a favourite of everyone from Napoleon to Frederick the Great.

The arrival of many French Hugenots to South Africa brought a wealthy of wine making knowledge to Africa and wine making has been popular ever since. South Africa now has over 100,000 hectares of land used for grape cultivation and the wine industry is thriving. South African wines are generally classified as New World wines though they blend Old World styles in their winemaking.

South Africa even boasts her own grape variety – Pinotage. Pinotage was developed by a professor of viticulture in 1925 when he experimented with combining the Pinot Noir grape, full of aroma and flavours, with the Cinsaut (locally known as Hermitage) grape which produces good grape yields. Pinotage is a unique and earthy wine.

The Cape Winelands are situated outside Cape Town, though the area of Walker Bay near Hermanus is growing in popularity as many award winning world class wines emerge from there. There is a great variety of wine growing regions in South Africa which produce a great spectrum of wine to suit every budget.

The southwestern tip of Africa boasts another natural wonder. It is home to one of world’s 6 floral kingdoms. The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest of the world’s floral kingdoms and its plants grow almost exclusively in South Africa.

The Cape Floral Kindgom not only occupies the smallest area, but in this tiny space it boasts a floral diversity found nowhere else on earth. There are over 8,700 plant species in the Cape Floral Kindgom, 70% of which are endemic to South Africa’s western cape region.

The plants of the Cape Floral Kindgom are called fynbos, from the Dutch worlds for fine leaved plants. When the Dutch first arrived in South Africa in the 1600s, they were on the lookout for wood to build ships and buildings. The small plants found scattered around the Cape were too fine for any kind of building, though the Cape Reed was popular for thatching and basket making.

Fynbos grows in well leached infertile soils. The most curious characteristic of most fynbos species is that they rely on fire to reproduce. Most of them have hardy fire resistant seeds that only open once a fire has passed through the area. After a major bush fire, the Cape countryside shines with bright new plant growth.

The fynbos world is very diverse and there are many plant families that make it up.

Most famous is the protea family. There are over 100 species of these plants which produce artichoke looking flowers in a range of colours, red, pink, yellow, white and even green.

The Erica are heath like plants that feature dainty clusters of flowers.

The Restio family, Cape Reeds, are grass like plants with golden brown or bronze flower heads.

Fynbos also boasts a beautiful selection of daisies.

Then there are the geophytes, bulbous plants, many of whom have become household names in the gardening fraternity, like babiana, freesia, gladiolus, iris and watsonia. Also popular with gardeners is the geranium and pelargoniums and a spectacular array of orchids.