Student Post: Food, Culture, and Heritage: A Particularly European Perspective on South Africa (Mitzi Ellemers)

In 1985, The Reader’s Digest Association South Africa published the South African Cookbook. The book focuses mainly on the food and recipes of the Cape Colony, and what it considers “traditional South African food”. Rather than having just a single creator of the book, there are numerous recipe contributors, test cooks, and a chief consultant. Through highlighting recipes which reflect the nation’s history of immigration this book celebrates the diversity of South African cooking.

As the lengthy historical introduction of this book demonstrates, the past is important to South Africa and the context of this book. It is important to note that this book was published during the height of the apartheid regime, a time of legal and state enforced racial segregation. As such, the Indigenous African perspective in the recipes and in the introduction of the history of the country is notably absent. The earliest mention of South African people refers to the “early pioneers”, the first Dutch people to colonize the land, rather than the native African people established in the country (South African Cookbook, 8). In its introduction, the book discusses the influence of a variety of nationalities as people colonized, emigrated, and were forced into South Africa, including Dutch; British; Malaysian, simply referenced as “Malay”; German; French; Chinese; Greek; Italian; Portuguese; Indonesian; Jewish; American; and what is referred to as “the Orient” (8-10). Each of these countries is credited with providing new, diverse perspectives to food and ways of cooking. Despite this diverse range of influence, there are still mentions of “a really traditional South African flavour” without a clear specification of what that means or from where it originated. In addition, the book claims that “South African culinary traditions began in the European kitchens of the 16th and 17th century”, neglecting Indigenous South African recipes of traditions at this time (8). For the most part, the settlers in South Africa saw themselves as separate entities from Indigenous populations who didn’t feel the need to credit or integrate their types of cooking, with a few exceptions. 

Indigenous African people are only mentioned once with reluctance for their contribution of introducing the colonialist populations to biltong, strips of dried and seasoned meat, a foundational food for South Africans at the time and which remains iconic today. The relationship of South Africans with other populations shows a blatant appropriation, claiming many foods to be their own while people of that nationality were being forced into slavery and disregarded as human beings. It is clear that the book was produced by, and for, the white minority living in South Africa at the time, comprised of an array of European immigrants. During this time, household tasks such as cooking were traditionally performed by housewives as well as domestic workers, who would be African women (Gaitskell et al., 91). Expecting an African servant to create meals from a book which blatantly ignores their existence and contribution to the county emphasizes the degree to which the black majority was ignored and marginalized. 

After a brief description of the materials needed, the rest of the book is organized by food categories: appetizers, salads, meats, vegetables, and baked goods. The recipes are dotted with words in languages other than English, representative of the range of nationalities present in South Africa and its culinary world. There exists a strong culture in South Africa around the “braai”, an Afrikaans word for an open fireplace used to cook meat. Although this method was introduced by Indigenous Peoples it was adopted by the Voortrekker population, Dutch settlers and agro-pastoralists, who appropriated Indigenous technologies for their own claim, as they felt as though they had a right to the land and all that was on it. 

The South African Cookbook is very much a product of its time, reflecting the sentiments and beliefs in a country characterized by its European population and the history of immigration they experienced. It provides a window into the white, middle-class household of South Africa during the 1980s, a nation which prided itself on an identity founded in diversity and multiculturalism, while remaining closed to any real engagement from people of colour. 

Gaitskell, D., Kimble, J., Maconachie, M., & Unterhalter, E. (1983). Class, race and gender: Domestic workers in South Africa. Review of African Political Economy, 10(27-28), 86-108.

Readers Digest South African Cookbook. Readers Digest Association, 1985.