Welcome to the Zulu Kingdom, KwaZulu-Natal

Suburban Fare

Boerewors - (meaning farmers' sausage) is a must at the traditional beach-berg-or-bush braai.



Krummelpap - (crumbly meal porridge, maize meal that is boiled and stirred with a fork to obtain a crumbly consistency) also makes a mouth-watering accompaniment to barbecued meat. It is traditionally served with a fried tomato and onion sauce.



Bobotie - is a Malay curried mince dish - very tasty, with bay leaves adding their special flavour.

Township and Rural Specialities

Boiled, their skins peeled, amadumbe tubers (which grow in the swamps) can be enjoyed on their own or added to a meat stew. One can also slice them into tiny chips, season with salt and fry them - just like ordinary potato chips.



During those hot summer months a bowl of amasi (sour milk) mixed with hard maize porridge makes a refreshing dish and is very popular in the townships as well as rural areas.



An all purpose crop is beans, which can be either cooked as part of a stew or boiled on their own, then toasted into a thick mush that goes well with dollops of uputhu (maize meal porridge). Alternatively, one can pound cooked beans with puthu, to create a dish called isithwalaphishi, a favourite for country folk.



Feeling more adventurous? Try a delicacy enjoyed by rural folks, cane rat meat (ivindwe). Thanks to research into the viability of the cane rat as a source of nutrition, ivindwe meat could soon be available in restaurants.



Flour Dumplings soaked in curry are very popular among Durban's Zulu people - they are better known as amadombolo. A much demanded delicacy now on sale at supermarkets is offal, made from ox innards like the intestines, liver and heart.



A more down-to-earth and commonly enjoyed meal is pap and vleis, in the townships at taxi ranks there are shisanyama outlets where one can buy a piece of meat and braai it on the fire that is always going.



Jo'burgers pride themselves on their favourite snack: a sheep's head (or smiley), but in Durban wherever there's booze around - pig's trotters are the thing. If you have a big appetite, however, a pigs head is recommended. A staple diet for many families in the townships and rich in carbohydrates is uputhu or puthu, dry maize porridge which can be enjoyed with a variety of stew dishes, or with roasted meat. To wash all this down try utshwala, the famous Zulu beer made from sorghum granules.

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