Cheap Eats:
Bobotie
  Ground Meat and Custard Casserole

by Cynthia Clampitt

There are actually very few dishes in the world that could be considered true purebreds. Single foods, such as a yak steak or piece of coconut, might be considered purely indigenous to a given locale, but as soon as you make the step up to actual recipes, you find that you’re dealing primarily with “mixed breeds.”

One aspect of this mixing is, of course, the introduction worldwide of good ingredients. Foods have been moving across and between continents for millennia. But there is another level of blending that is greater than that, and it is the cultural blending that comes out of the movement of people groups. More than ingredients are introduced; whole new ways of cooking get transported and integrated.

One classic blend that leaps readily to mind is Cajun/Creole cooking, that wonderful blend of French/African/Native American ideas and traditions that has created a hopping hybrid. What we consider Indian food is very heavily influenced by the Mughals, who were Mongols who had settled in Persia (Mughal is Persian for Mongol), adopted a lot of Persian traditions, then swept into India. So though the spices of the Indian kitchen are largely indigenous, many other ingredients and a lot of cooking methods of “classic Indian” are actually Persian.

South Africa is another example of a land where multiple influences have become a part of mainstream cuisine. The Dutch began visiting about 400 years ago, and decided to settle in a little more than 350 years ago. As a half-way point between Europe and the spice lands of the East, the Cape was soon busy and multicultural. Though the first settlers objected, traders began bringing slaves from Malaysia and Java. And though the Dutch government objected, people began spreading northward.

The next big influx of Europeans was after 1685, when the Huguenots were fleeing France to escape persecution. Then came Germans and other Europeans. It is from these groups, the Dutch, French, German, and other Europeans, that the group known as Afrikaners (or Boers) arose. Later, the British arrived, contributing not only by their own presence, but also by the influx of people from other parts of the British Empire, most notably India.

By the early 1800s, slavery had been outlawed in South Africa. People were moving around and mingling. Many of the indigenous Bantu, Hottentot, and Bushman people intermarried with Malays and Europeans. This interweaving gave rise to the group known as the Cape Coloreds, who adopted Dutch as their language and moved inland with the Dutch and French Huguenot settlers. But there was a large Malay population that kept to itself, neither intermarrying with outsiders nor moving inland. They became known as the Cape Malays. This group, which traces its roots back to Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, and other islands of the East Indies, is identified and united by shared language (Malay) and religion (Islam).

The Cape Malays have made major contributions to the culinary traditions of South Africa. Some Cape Malay dishes became mainstays of South African cooking. The three main dishes that fall into this category are sosaties, skewered and grilled meats; bredie, a substantial stew; and bobotie, a meat and custard casserole.

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