Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Southern Africa recipes. This page provides links to all the Africa recipes presented on this site, with 331 recipes in total.

These recipes, for the major part, originate in Southern Africa. Otherwise they are fusion recipes with major Southern African influences.

Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land. Defined by physical geography, Southern Africa is home to a number of river systems; the Zambezi River is the most prominent. The Zambezi flows from the northwest corner of Zambia and western Angola to the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique. Along the way, it flows over the mighty Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world and a major tourist attraction for the region. Southern Africa includes both subtropical and temperate climates, with the Tropic of Capricorn running through the middle of the region, dividing it into its subtropical and temperate halves. Countries commonly included in Southern Africa include Angola, Botswana, the Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In cultural geography, the island country of Madagascar is often not included due to its distinct language and cultural heritage.

Southern Africa is home to many people. It was initially populated by San, Koi-Koi and Pygmies in widely dispersed concentrations. Due to the Bantu expansion, the majority of African ethnic groups in this region, including the Xhosa, Zulu, Tsonga, Swazi, Northern Ndebele, Southern Ndebele, Tswana, Sotho, Pedi, Mbundu, Ovimbundu, Shona, Chaga and Sukuma, speak Bantu languages. The process of colonization and settling resulted in a small population of European (Afrikaner, British, Portuguese Africans, etc.) and Asian descent (Cape Malays, Indian South Africans, etc.) people in many southern African countries.

Food and Cuisine of Southern Africa

The cooking of the region of Southern Africa (not to be confused with the country of South Africa) is sometimes called 'rainbow cuisine', as the food in this region is a blend of many cultures: indigenous African societies, European, and Asian. To understand indigenous African cuisine, it is important to understand the various native peoples of southern Africa. The indigenous Africans of Southern Africa were roughly divided into two groups and several subgroups.

The largest group consisted of the Bantu-speakers, whose descendants today may identify themselves by various subgroup names such as Ndebele (northern and southern), Shona, Venda, Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Tsonga. They arrived in the region around 2,000 years ago, bringing crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and iron toolmaking with them. Hence the Bantu-speakers grew grain crops extensively and raised cattle, sheep and goats. They also grew and continue to grow pumpkins, beans, and leafy greens as vegetables.

A smaller group were the primeval residents of the region, the Khoisan, who some archaeologists believe had lived in the region for at least 10,000 years. Many descendants of the Khoisan people have now been incorporated into the population of South Africa. The Khoisan originally were hunter-gatherers (who came to be known as 'San' by the Bantu-speakers and as 'bushmen' by Europeans). After the arrival of the Bantu-speakers, however, some Khoisan adopted the Bantu-speakers' raising of cattle but did not grow crops. The Khoisan who raised cattle called themselves 'Khoi-Khoi'.

People were, in other words, defined to some extent by the kinds of food they ate. The Bantu-speakers ate dishes of grain, meat, milk and vegetables, as well as fermented grain and fermented milk products. While the Khoi-Khoi ate meat and milk and the San hunted wild animals and gathered wild tubers and vegetables. In many ways, the daily food of native South African families can be traced to the indigenous foods that their native African ancestors ate. The Khoisan and Bantu traditionally ate roasted meat, and they also dried meat for later use.

The influence of their diet is reflected in the universal Southern African love of barbecue (generally called in South Africa by its Afrikaans name, a 'braai') and biltong (dried preserved meat). The traditional beer was ubiquitous in the southern African diet, and the fermentation added additional nutrients to the diet. It was a traditional obligation for any family to be able to offer a visitor copious amounts of beer. Beer brewing was done by women, and the status of a housewife in pre-colonial southern Africa depended significantly on her skill at brewing delicious beer. A carton and glass of mageu, a traditional non-alcoholic drink made from fermented mealie pap that is popular among many of the Nguni people.

Milk was historically one of the most important components of the southern African diet. Cattle were considered a man's most important possession. In order to marry, a man had to compensate his prospective in-laws with a gift of cattle as a dowry for his bride. A married man was expected to provide a generous supply of milk to his wife and children, along with meat whenever he slaughtered cattle, sheep or goats. Because there was no refrigeration, most milks was soured into a kind of yogurt.

The basic ingredients include seafood, meat products (including wild game), poultry, as well as grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruits include apples, grapes, mangoes, bananas, papayas, avocado, oranges, peaches and apricots. Desserts may simply be fruit, but there are some more western-style puddings, such as malva pudding, reminiscent of sticky toffee pudding, which was inspired by both British cuisine and Dutch cuisine. Meat products include lamb, and game like venison, ostrich, and impala. The seafood includes crayfish, prawns, tuna, mussels, oysters, calamari, mackerel, and lobster. There are also several types of traditional and modern alcoholic beverages including many European-style beers.

Southern Africa, as defined by the United Nations scheme of African regions is divided into 5 states:

Southern Africa

Arms	Flag	Name of Territory	Capital	Name in Official Language(s)
		Botswana	Gabaronne	Botswana/Botswana
		eSwatini	Mbabane	eSwatini/Eswatini
		Lesotho	Maseru	Lesotho/Lesotho
		Namibia	Windhoek	Namibia
		South Africa	Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Pretoria	yaseNingizimu Afrika/yoMzantsi-Afrika/Suid-Afrika/Afrika-Borwa/ Aforika Borwa/Afrika Borwa/Afrika Dzonga/yeNingizimu Afrika/ Afurika Tshipembe/yeSewula Afrika