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The Cape recipe page is a cookery page on Cape and South African food and wine featuring a recipe or two local to that region from our Cape cook book and some interesting info about the various peoples of the Cape as well as a bit of history of the various towns and areas that make up the Cape Province. South Africa is made up of a diversity of peoples and this is evident in the wide variety of local foods. he Cape has food unique to that region.
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Part 2:-The people. People had lived in the Western Cape for thousands of years. They survived by hunting, fishing and collecting edible plants. They were the Bushmen, the Hottentot and primitive beachcombers, who searched the shores for seafood whilst the Bushmen were hunters living off game animals and the Hottentot were herders. The Bushmen and the Hottentot had migrated southward to the Cape, many years ahead of the Black peoples whose ancestral home lay well to the north. South Africa's history basically starts in Cape Town, hence it being known as 'The Mother City'. In 1488 the Portugese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first to round the Cape. The waters around the Cape were so perilous for early sailors that it had became known as the "the Bay of Storms". Two years later, Dias drowned when his ship sank off the Cape. A few years later in 1499 the Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama, was the first to complete the voyage around Africa to India. Ever since the Cape has been known as the Cape of Good Hope. Another Portuguese navigator, Antonio da Saldhana landed at the Cape in 1503, and climbed the mighty mountain which he named 'Table Mountain'. In fact the bay at the Cape became known as 'Saldanha' until 1601 when the dutchman Van Spilbergen re-named it 'Table Bay'. The Portuguese added peri-peri and fish dishes to the culinary heritage. In 1580, Sir Francis Drake sailed around the Cape in The Golden Hind and the ruggedness and breathtaking beauty of the peninsula motivated him to write-"This Cape is a most stately thing and the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth". In 1652 the Dutch East India Company, sent three small ships under the command of Jan van Riebeeck to establish a stronghold on the shores of Table Bay. Their objective was to grow vegetables, barter for livestock with the Hottentot tribes, build a hospital and establish a base for the repair of ships. In 1667 a castle was built to protect the new settlement, it is now the oldest European structure in South Africa. The battlements are laid out in the form of a 5-pointed star as specified in 17th century military strategy. The object was to ensure that each angle of the castle defense was overlooked by another so that attackers could be fired on both from above and from the side. In fact, a shot was never fired in anger. From that small settlement in 1652 of some 120 men and their families, Cape Town has grown into a modern city, with a municipal area of over 300 square kilometers (115 square miles) and a rapidly growing population of over 3 million. The Dutch, in order to establish their settlement, had to bring in slaves and labourers as the Cape was basically uninhabited at that time. Among the slaves there was a strong Islamic influence, led initially by political prisoners from Malaysia. Over the years this religious community became known as the 'Cape Malays'. The Cape Malay helped to pioneer not only Islam at the Cape but also Afrikaans and traditional Cape cuisine and music. The area of 'Bo-Kaap' in Cape Town is associated with this group that retains a strong sense of identity to this day. So we have the Malay and Indian influences with curry's and spicy dishes. The Dutch of course added their own influences to the culinary jigsaw with their stews and sausages, such as bobotie, potjiekos and boerewors. When the Dutch established the trading station at the Cape they had no intention of allowing it to become a colony. However, as demand for food exceeded supply, they allowed Europeans (Dutch, German, French), to establish farms. From this European community developed an independent people at the Cape, who regarded the Cape as their home and, when the British took over, distinguished themselves from the English by the name 'Afrikaners'. Hence the addition of French, German and English styles which further contributed to what Cape food and recipes have become. Furthermore, small communities of Chinese, Italians and Greeks have all contributed new flavours to the South African cuisine. The pages will never be static but indeed I will endeavour to add to and develop them all the time. If you have any comments please contact me.
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