World Cup Diary June 6: Food For Thought

World Cup Diary / Jonathan Wilson / 06 July 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet

Where's the skill in just lumping a steak on a grill?

Jonathan Wilson on Argentinean steaks, South African seafood, how grilling is cheating and why Germany are doing so well at the World Cup.

"It was then that it dawned on me just why Germany are doing so well in this tournament. It’s got nothing to do with their team ethic or their youthful reinvention of what it is to be German; it’s just that in a land of sausages they feel very much at home."

I seem to have spent most of the past four weeks being critical of South African food, and with - I think - some justification. They make great play of their steaks, but to be honest I'm not convinced they're any better than European steaks, and, aside from one magnificent fillet eaten at the Melville Grill during the Confederations Cup last summer, I haven't had anything in South Africa to match the steak in Argentina (then again, most Argentinians seem to prefer chorizo - which I guess is roughly equivalent to sirloin - whereas I'm very much for lomo - fillet, so maybe I'm not the best judge).

It may be that South Africa's best cuisine is actually its seafood - prawns, langoustines, lobsters and, particularly, calamari and baby squid - but I'm basing that on memories of Cape Town and Durban last November rather than this trip, on which I've got nowhere near the coast. And to be honest, I'm not sure even that is necessarily better than the seafood in any coastal area - I remember great John Dory in Gothenburg, great prawns in Kho Phi Phi and great lobster in Luanda. In fact, philistine as it may sound to say it, I'm not sure I've ever had better prawns than at the Rawalpindi Grill in Twickenham.

Besides which, is there really any great skill involved in dropping something on a grill? In Rustenburg I had access to a kitchen, so at various times made dal, aubergine chilli and various pasta sauces, but finding even basic ingredients in the local shops was a nightmare. OK, asafoetida and black mustard seeds (turns out you can get away with a
ginger-turmeric-garlic mix and coursegrain mustard respectively) have only recently become Sainsbury's staples in London, but bay leaves and garam masala surely are basics? There is something profoundly depressing about standing in front of a miniscule stand of herbs and spices as an array of pre-prepared barbecue marinades stretches into the distance. And Aromat, or at least its local equivalent (the even
saltier alternative to salt), which I haven't seen since going to my gran's for tea in the eighties.

There is potje, a type of curry, but, well, it's not as good as Indian curry. But it's occurred to me over the last couple of days that what South Africa does really well is sausage. Not hot-dogs or the plasticky boerewors they serve at the stadiums, but proper boerewors
such as they've served me for breakfast at my guesthouse in Norwood for the past four mornings. Boerewors is usually made from beef, occasionally with pork or lamb added, and flavoured with coriander, clove, pepper, allspice and nutmeg. Somehow it seems more meaty, less artificial, than British sausage, although it's almost certainly has a coronary-inducing fat content. Still, I reckon if I then stuff my face with banana and papaya afterwards it sort of balances.

On Sunday evening I went to a July 4th party thrown by some US journalists, and they had three different types of sausage on the braai - a proper coiled boerewors, a firm pork variant, and then a crappy hot dog because this was a night to celebrate Americana. It was then that it dawned on me just why Germany are doing so well in this tournament. It's got nothing to do with their team ethic or their youthful reinvention of what it is to be German; it's just that in a land of sausages they feel very much at home. They are [3.1] to win the tournament and, frankly, that's not the wurst bet available.

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