Food History Tour in Cape Town

I had the privilege of joining Cape Town Tourism on a media tour with Coffee Bean Routes owner Iain Harris and for four hours on Monday we enjoyed a brief history of food in the Cape, walking tour.

We started with African coffee origins and were hosted for a fine Ugandan cuppa at Escape Caffe with fantastic host Lameen. This has been to date, the first cup of good coffee that I enjoyed drinking without milk.

For all the pics of our tour, visit my FB Page Food and the Fabulous

Thereafter, Naiema Fakir, a local from the Bo Kaap area took us for a mini tour of Atlas Spice Shop in Rose street, and then to her home for a lunch of Cape Malay delights.

We enjoyed samoosas, dhaltjies (similar to bhajias/ chilli bites), chicken curry, sambals and salome (thick, textured roti breads).

Desserts consisted of cups of hot boeber (creamy sago and vermicelli pudding) and koessusters (aniseed and dried naartjie (tangerine) peel flavoured deep-fried flour doughnuts, covered in syrup and coconut).

Thereafter we meandered down to Long Street and visited Bebe Rose who served mainly Cameroonian, Kenyan and Ethiopian food from her small restaurant inside the women’s market. The injera (large ultra thin spongy rice flour pancakes, similar to dosa) and lentils as well as the Somalian spicy beef were lovely.

After the tour, I made a little stop at Honest Chocolate, now in Wale Street, a supplier I’ve seen grow from market seller to shop owners – they sell just a few bars of organic, fair trade raw chocolate and a few truffles made with agave syrup and no sugar. A perfect treat for coffee later, when I told my husband all about the day’s events.

I’d highly recommend that we become tourists in our own city and take the opportunity to learn more about our food culture and heritage- this is one delicious way of doing just that.

Contact Iain via the link to Coffee Bean Routes, above, for more details.

 

 

For all the pics of our tour, visit my FB Page Food and the Fabulous