The South African Culinary Complex: Three Traditions in One Country

South Africa contains three distinct culinary traditions operating simultaneously — the Afrikaner/Cape Dutch tradition (descended from Dutch, German, and French Huguenot settlers), the Cape Malay tradition (documented in WA2-10 — the enslaved and indentured workers from Indonesia, India, and Madagascar), and the indigenous African traditions (Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Venda, and others). The apartheid system deliberately suppressed indigenous African cooking, privileging Afrikaner food as "South African cooking" — the contemporary post-apartheid food movement is reclaiming all three traditions simultaneously.

South Africa's three culinary traditions and their contemporary reclamation.

• West African fufu (same maize porridge principle — pap is the Southern African form), Cape Malay cooking (documented separately), Argentine asado (same fire-is-social-institution principle)