Boerewors, Droëwors & Biltong

Oh dear, I see it's been a week since I've last blogged. I will make up for it and post a few blogs today about our sunny weekend.

It's been so sunny and actually really hot all weekend and still is today. We went for a walk last night after dinner and only got back after 9pm. I love summer evenings! I also love summer mornings so we went for another walk through the forest this morning.

Anyway, on Saturday morning we drove to a deli in Farnborough that Andre heard about from someone at work. I think it's owned by Australians and they sell Australian and South African goodies. We didn't really focus on the Australian things at all and instead went straight for the South African section.

First I spotted Fizzers. I wrote about these sweets (candy) in one of my first blog posts about how my sister puts them in the freezer which makes them brittle instead of chewy. They're great!

Ouma Rusks. (Ouma = Granny) I prefer home made rusks, but if you're not going to bake your own, these are the next best thing. I'm not baking or buying rusks because I like it way too much and won't be able to stop eating until it's all finished. Looks like they're popular here too because the shelves were quite empty.

Lots and lots of SA biscuits! Romany Creams, Zoo animal biscuits (I can't even remember when last I saw these in SA actually!) and Nuttykrusts. Of course I didn't buy any of these either for the same reason as the rusks.

Pronutro! I used to like the chocolate Pronutro flavour when I was younger. That was before I realised it would be wiser to just have All Bran with low-no-fat milk for breakfast.

Mieliepap! This I don't like much but it is definitely South African. Or just African. I think the whole of Africa probably eats mieliepap.

Koo guava halves. You probably get this here I'm sure. I haven't looked yet. But it was just good to see those familiar tins on the shelves. I tried to pretend I was in Pick 'n Pay. Just for a second. Then I turned around and saw the wooden floor and wooden shelves of this tiny deli and remembered where I was.

And then there was biltong. And droëwors. For those not familiar with this, biltong is cured meat and droëwors is literally dried sausage. You can read some more interesting facts about biltong and how it originated here. And about what droëwors is here.

I just had to go fetch some droëwors now to snack on. Writing about it made me want some.

We walked out of this small shop with three bags of shopping. One with just biltong and droëwors. One with boerewors (thick sausage, translated literally means "farmer sausage") and beers and ciders. (One of the packets of boerewors was made with Castle Beer!) And a third bag with cheeses and Mrs Balls chutney. I wrote about the best chutney ever in the whole world here.

Other things they had which we didn't buy: koeksisters, lemon meringue pie, various South African beers, Robertson's spices. And they had Old Brown Sherry. Which in South Africa probably costs around R25 or so? Do I remember correctly? Anyway, it is the cheapest sherry you can get in SA but it is not bad at all. I liked it because it's so sweet. At this deli it was £9 which equals R101,70! I think we can now get cheaper sherry than South Africa's cheapest sherry at the local grocery store here!



I am sitting outside in the garden now. It's too nice outside to be inside. I just saw a HUGE tree fall down!! There is one house behind our friends house and then there's forest. I've been hearing a big noise but didn't think about it. Then the tree just fell with a loud BANG! Sounds like they're either busy taking down another one now or chopping this one into pieces. Shame. Poor trees.