warthogs and kudu and wildebeest, oh my!
It’s not unusual for a visitor to South Africa to get excited about the wildlife. But I doubt many visitors get the most excited about eating it.
For me, a 10-day trip through South Africa’s Cape region was highlighted by the seamlessly never-ending variety of game meats to eat. On my first day, there was springbok—it was a meat I was expecting to see on a menu and one I was looking forward to trying. But on the second night when I opened the menu at the highly touted Tasting Room in Franschhoek to see both warthog and wildebeest on the menu, I was in hog heaven!
Anyone who knows me well knows that I absolutely love game meats, be it rabbit or venison. But a wildebeest?! (Frankly, I wasn’t even positive that was a real creature. I actually thought it was something invented to protect the sorcerer’s castle in fairy tales.) I’ve now seen one roaming the planes of Kwandwe, a private game reserve in the Eastern Cape, so I can confirm its existence.
The wildebeest was as delicious as its name is fantastical. Tender and lean with a faint gamy flavor, it reminded me of the kangaroo tail I loved to eat when I lived in South Australia. (Of course, I had the privilege of tasting my first wildebeest prepared by one of the finest chefs in South Africa.) The warthog’s flavor was more familiar. This much paler meat was like hearty pork loin. It is quite tender with a slightly more delicate flavor—no wonder it is a favorite food of lions.
The third night of my trip took me to another Franschhoek restaurant, Grande Provence, where the springbok shank was vacuum-sealed and steamed overnight on the steam table then lacquered with a rich sauce. I preferred the tender, seared fillet but then, I’m not particularly fond of shank in general. However I thought the cooking method was merit worthy, producing an almost confit-like texture from a nearly fat-less cut of meat.
Next there was ostrich in Oudtshoorn. If you know much about South African history will know the town as “The Ostrich Capital of the World.” In the 1800’s, the ostrich here were prized for their feathers, which garnered prices as high per pound as gold. Today there are still plenty of feathers in Oudshoorn but you can’t really set foot in a restaurant without an expectation that you will order ostrich in some form. Ostrich has been familiar meat to me since the strange, American ostrich meat craze in the 1980’s. In fact, there was even an ostrich farm in my small town in Pennsylvania! At Jemima’s the meat, which I know from experience can be difficult to cook, was simply grilled to medium rare, brilliantly tender, and served with a side of steamed vegetables.
On to the Eastern Cape, I was excited to head to the game reserves where game meats abound. In America, you wouldn’t expect to find bear on the menu in Yellowstone, but in Africa, it seems to be the tradition to see an animal by day, taste it by night. No, we did not nosh on lightly roasted lion cub but we were served impala, kudu and more springbok, this time lightly smoked and served cold like smoked trout. The kudu, a member of the deer family with extraordinary, curly horns, was ground into a spicy sausage. The impala, the least of my favorite African game meats, was seared and served medium rare. I found the impala tough compared to the other game and slightly less interesting in flavor than the others. It was sort of like a fillet of old cow.
Although I tried my best to taste every game meat common in the southernmost tip of Africa, I still missed a few. Since I’m writing this from Cape Town, I still hold out the hope that I can hit the airport shops for a few tins of Eland and Steenbok paté for the road.
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