African Cooking Class Cape Town

Ever cooked Pap, chakalaka, samp and African stew? This half-day African cooking class is your chance to get your hands messy cooking local food in a fantastic Cape Township cookery school. You'll also be supporting a community project which is delivering real benefits.

Food and wine is most definitely a highlight of Cape Town for most people. However, few get a taste of the local African food most people eat on a daily basis. To explain this cuisine in a paragraph is a tricky task. South Africa is an incredibly complex country with 11 different languages, but what unites all tribes is a love of nyama (meat). A meal will typically consist of meat and a starch. The starch depends on the tribe. Pap consists of dried ground corn made into a thick porridge. It is very similar to that perennial favourite of the deep south (USA), grits. The only tribe that does not eat Pap are the Xhosa (Nelson Mandela's tribe). The Xhosa eat Samp which is made from un-ground corn, and usually mixed with dried beans, it takes a long time to cook! Sorry for getting all technical, but hopefully now you'll understand why you really need to try Samp and beans and Pap to get a flavour of the local African food.

This African cooking class tends to start with an introductory low-down on African cuisine and culture accompanied by a refreshing glass of homemade ginger beer. The class itself involves learning to cook dishes like pap, chakalaka, samp and African stew. For lunch, the dishes are served up in the restaurant - a building crafted from old shipping containers!
On the way to the cooking school you'll also visit the District 6 museum to get an insight into the history of the forced removal of blacks from their communities.

This cooking school is set up to provide local students with training for employment, with the restaurant, visitor cooking classes and other entrepreneurial ventures funding the set-up. It's a great local community project that is really working.

You might get a little messy, and who knows your hair might get ruffled by the chef's hat, but really there are no excuses for missing this one. Enjoyment will clearly be correlated with a healthy appreciation for food and a willingness to get stuck in, but you don't need to be a keen cook to take part. Although ostensibly an African cooking class, the cooking part is really just a great opportunity for you to taste the local food and to spend some time meeting the local people. This experience is available Monday to Saturday. Pick up is at 9am so you might have to tackle the hotel alarm clock the night before (always tricky after a drink or two!). You'll be finished around 2pm, giving you a happy afternoon with that hearty contentment that only comes from having done something a little bit different in the morning.