Braai is a South African tradition of cooking meat over an open fire, often enjoyed with family and friends. It has evolved to include seafood, vegetables, and a social aspect. National Heritage Day on September 24th is celebrated with a braai.
Braai is the South African word for barbecue, plural braaie, and refers to a meal cooked over an open fire, usually outdoors. It originally came from an Afrikaans word, braaivleis, meaning grilled meat, but is now a universally used term in South Africa. The braai is a South African institution that encompasses not only the cooking of meat over a grill over coals, but also includes a social aspect: time spent around the braai with family and friends is an integral part of South African heritage.
As with any traditional food, the cooking method differs from cook to cook, from fire cooking to what is cooked and how it is cooked. The food ranges from simple everyday dishes to gourmet delicacies. Traditionally, braaie was limited mainly to meat – lamb, beef and chicken, but seafood, bread and vegetables can also be cooked over the flames.
A regular South African braai will usually include cooking boerewors, which is a traditional thick sausage and meat such as steak or sosati, a type of kebab. Chicken pieces can also be braised, often with a marinade. Traditional dishes served in a braai as accompaniments may include porcupine which is a stiff cornmeal porridge, often cooked in a black pot over a fire and served with a tomato and onion relish and salads.
A seafood braai may include fish, often wrapped in tin foil to prevent it from falling through the grill, prawns or prawns. Again, the entire process from fire cooking to cooking and eating is seen as a social occasion. A braai involves all the family and friends and usually happens over many hours.
Once the meat has been cooked, the meal is often eaten outside, around the fire. Due to the generally good climate in South Africa this is possible, often throughout the year, but especially in the summer. Some true enthusiasts have indoor braais built into their homes for rainy or cold days.
Every year on 24th September, South Africa celebrates its diverse cultures and the unifying effect of the braai with a national holiday. National Heritage Day is an annual public holiday in South Africa, held every year on September 24 to celebrate the different cultures that live in the country. A move is being made to turn this into National Braai Day as, throughout South African cultures, cooking is done over a fire while gathered with loved ones. In Zulu, another of South Africa’s eleven official languages, a braai is called a Chisa Nyama. Every year people all over the country gather on this day and braai to celebrate their heritage.
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