SA cuisine: a passion for prawns

The Cape strandlopers aren't the only South Africans who have enjoyed local fish, although it's harder today than ever before, with the waters off the Cape and Namibia under siege from fleets of trawlers from countries that have depleted their own stocks from overfishing.

Peri-peri for chicken and prawns, a gift of the Portuguese in Mozambique, has enlivened South African palates for decades.

Besides a national passion for prawns, South Africans show a fondness for an odd fish called the kingklip - baked, deep-fried, grilled or pan-fried - and for snoek, a game fish that is braaied, usually, or smoked.

Knysna, on the Cape south coast, is world-famous for fabulous oysters: large and small, wild and cultivated.

Coffee and rusks

Rusks - descended from the Dutch rusk, the French biscotte and the German zwieback - are far superior to any of these. They are chunks of bread made with yeast or baking powder, baked as a loaf, separated into rectangular slabs, then shoved back into the oven to dry out.

They come in a variety of flavours - buttermilk, marmalade, aniseed, even muesli. They last a very long time - useful for trekkers and farmworkers and, today, an essential with morning coffee before setting out on a game drive or facing a day at the office.

That coffee - especially if it is ordered at one of the many superb coffee shops - is likely to be the best outside Italy, thanks to an influx of Italian immigrants in the mid-20th century.

Clearly South Africa hasn't just got the rainbow - it has managed to hold on to the pot of gastronomic gold as well!