ADAM: The World Cup has put South Africa in the spotlight for everyone who cares about soccer. And Americans too! So in preparation for Sunday’s championship game, we went to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and gorged at Madiba, New York’s most festive purveyor of South African cuisine. (We learned about Madiba at a soccer event hosted by the South African wine, Nederburg. Thanks, Nederburg!) As luck would have it, we got to Madiba right after last week’s Ghana-Uruguay game, so the place was overflowing with African soccer fans, who were still partying even though they lost. That means we got to hear annoying horn noises in person!
LAURA: We kicked off our meal with Bunny Chow, which, like monkey gland sauce and Sugar Babies, sadly does not contain the mammal after which its named. “Curry in a Bread Bowl” would have been a more apropos moniker, since that’s what it is: a scooped-out loaf filled to the brim with curried stew. It’s a popular street food in South Africa and originated in the 1940s, when apartheid laws kept black people from eating in restaurants. To keep business from tanking, Indian restaurant owners, or banias, slung their curries into hunks of bread (instead of bowls) and sold the dish out their windows, creating a very early version of take-out food with edible doggie bags.
ADAM: And that’s how Bunny Chow proved racism creates great things! What a history lesson. Next we gulped down a rich oxtail potjiekos, aka stew, sucking the soft beef off the tail bones. Potjiekos (pronouced poi-kei-kos) literally translates into “pot food” and is the name for any stew cooked in a—yup—potjie. The potjies are three-legged cast iron kettles that range in size from Adorable (fits in your palm) to Holy Crap (gives you a hernia). They were originally used by wagon-train-traveling Afrikaans settlers, who never bothered to clean out the pots. Instead they’d leave in all leftover stew, then simply toss in more ingredients before every meal to replenish what had been eaten the night before. We sincerely hope that’s not how potjiekos is made at Madiba.
LAURA: A braai (pronounced bry) is a South African barbecue with customs similar to what we see here in the States. (Families do it on weekends and holidays; men helm the grill, women make the sides; Father’s Day cards make cliched jokes about it.) For our braai experience, we tried boerewors (above), a beef sausage with Dutch heritage that’s formed into a glorious spiral and tossed on the braai until the casing crisps up. It was served with a mild cornmeal porridge called pap (think grits, but thicker), which is the go-to side for all meats (“vleis”) ‘round these parts.
ADAM: How much do South Africans love their pap and vleis? Well, a local radio station recently created a song parody called “Pap En Vleis.” It was set to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” Obviously. Check out an delightfully weird, choreographed, costumed performance below. We’re fairly certain this is what they do for half-time entertainment at every World Cup game. South Africa is awesome!
Eats Deets
Madiba Restaurant
195 Dekalb Avenue (Fort Greene, Brooklyn)
(718) 855-9190
